Over the last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has gone directly after President Trump. That included a Twitter war of words but also some pointed comments, like these made at a church service this past weekend:
"Trump's America is one of division, and intolerance," the governor said Sunday. "The most defining symbol in his America — the first thing he started talking about — was that he wanted to build a wall."
Attending the State Fair in Syracuse on Wednesday, Cuomo weighed in again on Trump, this time over the prospect of the president pardoning one of his former associates who recently pleaded guilty in a hush-money scheme.
"It's a pardon to stop a person from testifying against you. To me, that is tantamount to obstruction of justice," Cuomo said.
Although it was many years ago, Cuomo was once the recipient of Trump's campaign cash — $64,000, to be exact. Cuomo's Democratic primary opponent, Cynthia Nixon, called on the governor to return that money.
"If Andrew Cuomo is trying to fashion himself as an opponent to Trump, he should return this money," Nixon said. "If he rejects what Donald Trump stands for, he should return this money."
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Cuomo campaign said, "The joke is on Nixon and Donald Trump. We are using his contributions to elect Democrats up and down the ticket to fight his agenda tooth and nail. New York is the antidote to Trump's America, and we will use every resource at our disposal to defeat his dangerous policies."
Nixon said that would not be nearly enough. "We shouldn't have to be doing this here today," she said at a press conference. "This should have happened a long time ago," she said.
Cuomo has been using campaign cash this year to help fellow Democrats, something he has not done in years past. Cuomo has been criticized for promising to help win a Democratic state Senate in 2014, then reneging on that promise. The Upper House is still controlled by Republicans, four years later.