Cuomo turned down Trump invitation to participate in April press briefing: report

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) declined an invitation from President Trump to participate in a White House press briefing in April, The Washington Post reported Sunday. 

Trump asked Cuomo to join him at a press briefing on April 21, the day Cuomo visited the White House to meet with the president, officials with knowledge of the episode told the Post. 

Hope Hicks, a former Trump campaign staffer who returned to the White House as a senior adviser in 2018, encouraged the idea, officials told the Post. 

Cuomo declined to participate and left the White House without photojournalists taking pictures of the New York governor with the president. 

Spokespeople for the White House and Cuomo were not immediately available for comment. 

Cuomo, who has often sparred with Trump amid the coronavirus pandemic, at the time called the April meeting “productive.” 

After the meeting, Trump announced that the USNS Comfort, which was docked in New York City to assist with coronavirus patients, would return to Virginia to be routed elsewhere.

“I’ve asked Andrew if we could bring the Comfort back to its base in Virginia so that we could have it for other locations, and he said we would be able to do that,” Trump said at a press briefing on the afternoon after his meeting with Cuomo.