CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) Discusses Trump Moving Residency from New York City to Florida, Taxes, New York City Investigations of Trump

Interview

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Joining me now, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Governor, we know, there's no love lost between you and the president. That said, Donald Trump claimed to have significant wealth. Will the loss of his taxes hurt New York state?

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, (D-NY): Well, first, we don't even know what he pays in taxes. Right? Because the president won't release his taxes.

But I don't think this is taxes. I think this is a legal maneuver, Erica. He's being sued by the Manhattan district attorney in New York for release of his taxes. Which he doesn't want to do, obviously.

And I think he -- this is a desperate legal tactic whereby they're going to argue, well, we're not New York residents anymore. We're Florida residents. So New York doesn't have a right to the tax returns.

I don't think it's a legal tactic that's going to hold up. I don't think it's dispositive.

But I think the president is in desperate times, as we know, and we know he'll take any legal tactic imaginable. We see it with impeachment, we see it with witnesses. And this is more of the same. He does not want to release his taxes. And he is in trouble before the judge here in New York.

And the timing is just too coincidental. That you're in the middle of this lawsuit for him to release his New York tax returns, which would have a lot of information obviously that would reveal federal information and, all of a sudden, he wants to decide to leave the state of New York. Nothing else explains it.

And he said as much in his tweet. You know? He said it was the -- that he was not being treated well by the political forces. He's referring to the Manhattan district attorney.

He's also being sued by the state attorney general for information on his charity. So I think -- I think it's all about another legal tactic to avoid justice, which is what we've been accustomed to.

HILL: You've been critical of the 2017 federal tax law passed by Republicans. You blame it for some residents fleeing your state because of the cap, the SALT cap which limits state and local tax deductions to $10,000. The average deduction in New York State is more than $22,000.

High taxes, though in New York, were obviously an issue before 2017. Are you seeing a significant difference since then?

CUOMO: Here's the only difference, Erica. Under my governorship, the tax rate for every New Yorker has come down. Donald Trump pays a lower tax rate under me than he did before. The only tax that went up is the tax that Donald Trump imposed on New

York with his 2017 federal tax, so-called, reform. Not only did it give big corporations a big tax break, it shifted the burden to Democratic states and shifted the burden to wealthy Democratic states.

And New York was already the number-one contributing state in the nation to the federal government. And he increased that contribution by $15 billion.

So to the extent taxes have gone up in New York, the only one who raised taxes was Donald Trump.

I have lowered taxes for every New Yorker, controlled state spending to an historic extent.

So it's not about the tax rate. It's about this legal tactic. He does not want to release his taxes. He doesn't want to do it on the federal level.

And the lawsuits in New York are very heated and very strong and that's what he's trying to get away from. He doesn't want to disclose, doesn't want transparency, doesn't want people knowing his personal information. We know that on every level and that's all this is. And I don't believe it's going to work.

HILL: We'll be watching.

Before I let you go, I want to check in. Nonstop rain in New York State this week. Significant flooding in Upstate New York. That's a major issue for the state. Where do things stand today

CUOMO: Anyone who's in denial about climate change is really putting us in a dangerous position. We've had a weather pattern in New York that's unlike anything we've seen. We never had hurricanes and tornadoes and these flash floods you see now. The fires in California.

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We had a flash flood that came in overnight that literally took small creeks and rivers and made them explode.

We had one situation where literally a house was about to get swept away, and we had to deploy a swift-water rescue team to take a family and an infant out of the home under very dangerous conditions.

So we keep fighting these ongoing weather emergencies that are more and more frequent, more and more dangerous. We had one fatality last night, unfortunately.

But it's frightening. I have no other word for it, but it's frightening.

HILL: Governor Andrew Cuomo, appreciate your taking the time to join us today. Thank you. CUOMO: Thanks. Thank you, Erica.

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