President Donald Trump blasted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) on Wednesday after the mayor, who promised $1 billion in cuts to the New York City Police Department (NYPD), affirmed the addition of a “Black Lives Matter” mural painted on Fifth Avenue — a move the president says will “antagonize New York’s finest.”
“NYC is cutting Police $’s by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue,” Trump said on Wednesday, warning that it will “further antagonize New York’s Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the horrible BLM chant, ‘Pigs In A Blanket, Fry ’Em Like Bacon.’”
“Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them, won’t let this symbol of hate be affixed to New York’s greatest street,” he continued. “Spend this money fighting crime instead!”
New York officials last month announced their plans to paint “Black Lives Matter” on specific streets in all of the city’s five boroughs, following a similar move in Washington, DC.
“It’s time to do something officially representing this city to represent the fundamental power of Black Lives Matter,” de Blasio said at the time.
“A proposal put on the table was to name streets in each borough and to paint the words on the streets of this city in each borough at a crucial location,” he continued.
“What will be clear in the street name and on the streets of our city is that message that now our city must fully, fully, deeply feel — and this nation must as well — that black lives matter,” he added.
Julia Arredondo, de Blasio spokeswoman, confirmed the addition of the mural in a statement last week:
The president is a disgrace to the values we cherish in New York City. He can’t run or deny the reality we are facing, and any time he wants to set foot in the place he claims is his hometown, he should be reminded Black Lives Matter.
The mayor said on Wednesday that the imagery will be added to Fifth Avenue in “a matter of days.”
“I know you love Florida; you come from Florida, Donald Trump’s new state,” de Blasio told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Wednesday.
“But whenever he comes back to his old state, he’ll get a message that he still doesn’t understand,” he said. “Maybe seeing it outside his doorstep will help him get the point.”
“It’s an important message to the whole nation, and obviously we want the president to hear it, because he’s never shown respect for those three words,” de Blasio said.
The mayor this week confirmed sizeable cuts to the police department budget, telling reporters that they have a plan “that can achieve real reform, that can achieve real redistribution, and at the same time ensure that we keep our city safe.”
“Everything was with an eye to safety, so we will be able to ensure the patrol strength we need. We will be able to ensure that school safety can do its job. The school safety issue would be addressed over several years,” de Blasio said.
“I was skeptical at first, and wanted to see how it could all come together,” the mayor added. “A lot of painstaking work occurred to figure out the right way to do things.”
The announcement coincides with a recent surge in shootings in the Big Apple, with over 110 people shot over the course of nine days, as Breitbart News detailed.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), an outspoken advocate for defunding police departments, dismissed the city’s move, contending that it is not a victory and adding that “the fight to defund policing continues.”
A recent Siena College Research Institute survey found that the majority of voters across New York State, 57 percent, oppose reducing police department funding. However, a slight majority, 51 percent, of voters in New York City specifically, indicated that they supported such cuts.