Will Trump Need 'An Army' To Protect Him In New York? Cuomo Says Quote Out Of Context

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sparked a controversy during a press conference Wednesday when he said that President Donald Trump "better have an army" if he wants to return to New York City.

Cuomo later softened his remarks, and his spokesperson said the characterization of original quote as a threat was taken out of context.

In a short-notice press briefing on Wednesday to talk about Trump's plans, outlined in a memo, to divert money from what he calls "lawless" cities, Cuomo characterized the move as an illegal attack on Trump's political opponents.

The memo gave Seattle, Portland, New York City, and Washington, D.C., as examples, all Democratic strongholds that have seen protests against racial violence. Experts have already questioned the legality of the memo.

The governor did say at one point during the conference that Trump "better have an army if he thinks he’s gonna walk down the street in New York. New Yorkers don’t want to have anything to do with him."

But some reports on the briefing ignored clarifications later on that toned down his rhetoric.

The New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch and rated as factually "mixed" by the Media Bias Fact Check, called the press conference a "rant" and said that Cuomo had "all but threatened" the president.

Cuomo's office contested this portrayal, saying that the quote was being taken out of context. Jack Sterne, an administration spokesperson for Cuomo's office, told International Business Times in an email that "the context is not fully there in a lot of the reporting. The governor was actually pretty clear about this during the call."

Sterne pointed out that Cuomo circled back to the subject of the president needing 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," Cuomo said according to the transcript of the briefing. "He’ll never come back to New York because New Yorkers will never forget how gratuitously mean he has been to them, and how many times he as tried to kill the city that gave him his start and birthed him. That’s what I meant."

The New York Post piece also implied that Cuomo's decision not to allow nursing homes to turn away sick patients might have led to 6,500 deaths. Sterne said that study by the New York Department of Health found that "the overwhelming majority of hospital patients sent back into nursing homes were not only medically stable, they were no longer contagious."