New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D.) said the only threat to the United States "is from within" during his inauguration address delivered Tuesday.
While Cuomo, who begins his third term as governor, has said he will not run for president in 2020, he consistently struck a national message and criticized the Trump administration without ever specifically naming President Donald Trump himself.
"When they write the history books about this time and place, I believe they will record this period as one of global and national unrest," he said. "A time that saw thousands of new immigrants reaching for our borders in search of hope. A time that saw troubled, frightened, American citizens frustrated by economic stagnation and a deteriorating democracy, have grave new doubts about where our country is headed."
Although he said during his campaign that America "was never that great"–a statement he soon attempted to clarify–he declared no threat existed against the U.S. except the divisions ravaging it from the inside.
"There is no other nation that can threaten us. America's only threat is from within: it is the growing division amongst us," said. "The threat is when we see ourselves as black or white, foreign or native born, instead of as Americans. As Christians or Jews or Muslims, gay or straight, instead of as Americans. That, my friends, is truly frightening."
"People's frustration is turning to fear and the fear is turning to anger and the anger is turning to division. It is impossible to overstate how dangerous, how malignant this condition is. It is like a cancer that is spreading throughout our society, a disease that causes one cell in the body politic to attack other cells, to turn one against one another," he added.
Cuomo said his third term would pursue a baldly progressive agenda and that he felt "liberated" by having a Democratic-controlled legislature in both chambers for the first time in his tenure as governor.
"We will make history, and New York will move forward, not by building a wall, my friends, but by building new bridges, and building new airports, and creating new middle-class jobs and an economic future for the next generation, and showing how good we can be at all of this when we are together," he said.