New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo back-peddled on comments he made earlier this week about America’s “greatness” after getting bombarded with tweets from President Donald Trump the past several days.
“I want to be very clear,” he said during a conference call with reporters, according to CBS New York. “Of course America is great and of course America has always been great.”
Cuomo told reporters he simply disagreed with Trump’s definition of “greatness,” citing specifically his family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border.
During a bill signing earlier this week, Cuomo said that America was “never that great” in the context of gender and women’s equality.
“We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great,” he said. “We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged. We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping of women, 51 percent of our population, is gone, and every woman’s full potential is realized and unleashed and every woman is making her full contribution.”
The comments were met with widespread criticism, especially from President Trump, who slammed Cuomo for New York’s taxes and claimed the governor was having a “meltdown.” Cuomo shot back on Twitter, saying America “will not go back to discrimination, segregation, sexism, isolationism, racism or the KKK.”
Trump on Friday then tweeted suggesting that Cuomo’s comments were “career threatening” and took a shot at his brother Chris Cuomo’s CNN ratings.
