New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo let loose on President Trump late Wednesday after the president singled out New York City in a memo calling for “anarchist jurisdictions” to lose federal funding. “It’s cheap, it’s political, it’s gratuitous, and it’s illegal,” Cuomo told reporters of the president’s order for a review of funding to Democratic-led cities. Trump accused authorities in Seattle, Portland, Washington, D.C., and New York City of enabling “crime and lawlessness” amid widespread anti-racism protests in recent months, and moved to cut off such cities from federal funding. “Everything that he could possibly do in his power to hurt New York City he has done,” Cuomo was quoted as saying by The New York Times, adding that the president “better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the street in New York.” 

He went on to clarify that he meant New Yorkers themselves simply would not welcome the president in the city. “My comment about the president’s bodyguards in New York City, all I’m saying is that he is persona non grata in New York City and I think he knows that and he’ll never come back to New York because New Yorkers will never forget how gratuitously mean he has been to New Yorkers and how many times he has tried to kill the city that gave him his start and that birthed him,” he said. “The best thing he did for New York City was leave. Good riddance. Let him go to Florida. Be careful not to get COVID,” Cuomo said.