New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton, the person in charge of New York’s airports and transit centers, has tested positive for the coronavirus and would be quarantined.
“He will be working at home,” Cuomo said in a press conference. “He’s the executive director of the Port Authority, so he’s been at the airports obviously, when many people were coming back with the virus.”
JUST IN: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton has tested positive for coronavirus.
"He is going to be on quarantine. He'll be working from home." https://t.co/MBX67sHCVN #coronavirus #covid19 pic.twitter.com/hs8jCpNkZC
— ABC News (@ABC) March 9, 2020
Cuomo also said that Cotton’s senior team would be tested and could be quarantined as well. The number of New York coronavirus cases rose by 37 to 142 total as of Monday morning.
President Trump slammed Cuomo for saying in a Saturday appearance on MSNBC that the White House has been sending him “mixed messages” on handling the virus.
“There are no mixed messages, only political weaponization by people like you and your brother, Fredo!” Trump tweeted, in reference to Cuomo’s brother Chris, a CNN anchor.
Cuomo and Trump have sparred repeatedly in the past, most recently on illegal immigration. In February, the two met at the White House after Cuomo partially relented on a decision to block the federal immigration authorities from accessing New York’s motor vehicle records.
The governor stopped short of offering the administration “unfettered access,” despite warnings from the Department of Homeland Security, and said he would still resist efforts to use the registry for immigration enforcement, calling it “pure politics.”