Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said his state didn’t utilize a Navy ship to combat the spread of COVID-19 because it was “never needed,” citing shifting circumstances in March 2020.

President Donald Trump sent the USNS Comfort to New York City in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic took its toll on the nation and the world. Cuomo said New York City had COVID-19 “first and worst,” and after the Comfort arrived in New York Harbor, the ship “initially” wasn’t prepared to take in patients.

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“We worked through that and then, ironically, the crew of the ship, Maria, got COVID, and that took a period of time. By the time the ship was operational, the curve had turned. The hospitals were not under the same stress, and we had opened up and were set up with an emergency facility of 1,200 beds at the Javits Convention Center. We turned that into a very large emergency shelter for overflow of hospitals,” Cuomo said on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.

“So we never needed the ship. In fact, we never even filled Javits,” Cuomo said, referring to a convention center that was also used for COVID-19 patients.

Many have scrutinized Cuomo’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York, including a 2021 report from New York Attorney General Letitia James stating Cuomo’s administration had been greatly undercounting nursing home deaths from COVID-19. The governor resigned from his position later that year.

Cuomo testified to Congress in September 2024, saying he was “sorry for every life lost” from the nursing home deaths from COVID-19. However, he didn’t take responsibility for an order from the New York State Department of Health that prohibited nursing homes from denying admittance to patients “solely based upon a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.”

The former governor is currently running for mayor of New York City as an independent candidate, two months after he lost the Democratic Party’s primary race to socialist Zohran Mamdani. Cuomo said Sunday primary elections get “most active” for the Democratic Party and said his opponent “mobilized” voters under 30 and “the socialists.”

In the general election, he said voters will be “different,” as New York City residents are “not socialists.”

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Mamdani, a Democrat, is outraising both Cuomo and sitting Mayor Eric Adams, who is also running as an independent, ahead of the general election, raising $1,051,200 from July 12 to Aug. 18. Cuomo raised $507,660, while Adams raised $420,886.

The socialist candidate is outpacing his opponents by double digits in polling, leading Cuomo by 15% at 38.2%, compared to the former governor’s 23.2%. Meanwhile, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa polled at 16.6%, with Adams at 10.6%.