On the rainy morning of March 28, 2020, President Trump addressed a phalanx of journalists outside the White House following a call with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. "There's a possibility that sometime today, we'll do a quarantine — short-term, two weeks — of New York, probably New Jersey, and certain parts of Connecticut," he said while clutching his umbrella. "This would be an enforceable quarantine. You know, I'd rather not do it, but we may need it."

Hours later, Cuomo was asked during his daily press conference about Trump's comments. "From a medical point of view, I don't know what you'd be accomplishing," he offered with a shrug.

But as sunset approached, the governor appeared on CNN with a much more forceful assessment, predicting that a quarantine would unleash "chaos and mayhem" in the tristate area, and homing in on the financial implications of such a move. "I think it would paralyze the economy," he said. "I think it would shock the economic markets in a way we've never seen before."

CNN anchor Ana Cabrera teed up a seemingly tailor-made question: "What would this mean for the stock market? Would it have to shut down?"

"Oh, it would drop like a stone," Cuomo insisted. "That would drop this economy in a way that wouldn't recover for months, if not years."

What viewers did not know is that in the hours between Cuomo's Albany press conference and his CNN dinner-hour appearance, he corresponded directly with CNN leadership. Firing off a text to the network's top marketing and communications executive, Allison Gollust — who had also been his own publicist a few years prior — Cuomo wrote, in an apparent reference to CNN President Jeff Zucker, "Ask Jeff to call me plz." Zucker's representatives say he has "no record" of speaking to Cuomo that day. Regardless, Cuomo landed on a talking point sure to grab Trump's attention. And Zucker certainly knew exactly which levers to pull when it came to the president, given their long and lucrative relationship via the reality show The Apprentice.

About 30 minutes before Cuomo appeared on CNN by remote feed, Gollust emailed a programing staffer, cc'ing Zucker, and offered the governor as a last-minute guest to talk about Trump's proposed quarantine. She then told Zucker that the governor would like to speak with him. When the segment ended, Gollust texted Cuomo: "Well done . . . Cuomo-W. Trump-L."