New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio slammed President Trump for his reluctance to help cities and states recover from the COVID-19 crisis as he pushes to reopen the economy, during an interview on CNN Tuesday morning.
When pressed on asking Trump during a Sunday press conference about whether he’s telling New York City to “drop dead” over COVID-19, de Blasio said that he’s asked the President “repeatedly” to “help all cities and states get back on our feet.”
Citing how New York City has lost an estimated $7 billion in revenue thus far due to the COVID-19 crisis — which has gone toward paying police, firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers and health care workers — de Blasio said that money isn’t coming back and that “the only place” it can come from is the federal government.
De Blasio then pointed out how the airline industry received a $58 billion bailout, before asking why the same can’t be done for cities and states, and that he’s “shocked” by Trump’s “silence.”
“You’re not going to have a restart and economic recovery if the cities and states that lead the American economy are back on their heels and can’t provide basic services,” de Blasio said. “I said this to the President: I know you want to restart, I want to restart. We can’t do that if we cannot even function as cities.”
De Blasio claimed that he heard “dead silence” despite having numerous conversations with the President.
“And he’s a New Yorker — he was — now he lives in Florida, but he’s literally said nothing about how to help the place that’s been the epicenter to get back on its feet,” de Blasio said, before adding that Trump “dropped the ball” on ramping up testing and allowing the stimulus package to “allow our economy to recover.”
De Blasio further tore into Trump, saying that “history’s going to judge him very harshly” much like what happened with former Presidents Gerald Ford and Herbert Hoover, who he said “ignored” the impact of the Great Depression.
“That’s where this President is now and he should kiss his re-election good-bye if he thinks he’s going to be able to convince the American people to want four more years of a guy who can’t even get the basics right,” de Blasio said.
Watch de Blasio’s remarks below:
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio explains why he's "shocked" by Trump's "silence" on helping cities and states pic.twitter.com/1LRWqYWsh1
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) April 21, 2020
