Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Aug. 15 that America “was never that great” and sparked a firestorm of criticism. John Flanagan, the Republican majority leader of the New York State Senate, said Cuomo “should apologize today.” Marc Molinaro, the Republican candidate for governor, said, “America, with its imperfections, has always been great.” Cynthia Nixon, Cuomo's opponent in the Sept. 13 primary election said, "I think this is just another example of Andrew Cuomo trying to figure out what a progressive sounds like and missing by a mile." Cuomo's full comment said, “We are not going to make America great again. It was never that great.... We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged.” Dani Lever, Cuomo’s spokeswoman, later issued a clarifying statement saying the governor “believes America is great.” Cable news hosts were busy bloviating about the comment for a day after the comment, with even Donald Trump tweeting, “Can you believe this is the Governor of the Highest Taxed State in the U.S., Andrew Cuomo, having a total meltdown!” Part of Cuomo's original comments were about Trump. “He has it on his hat: ‘Make America Great Again.’ What does that mean? We’re going to go back to a time when America was great. Right? ‘Great again.’ The whole concept is, it’s retrospective,” Cuomo said. “When do you want to go back to, Mr. President? What was the great time that you want to take us back to, when America was great?”