Trump asks NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio to hire back 'finest' NYPD officers after force's budget slashed by $1B
Soon after Seattle’s police chief quit following the City Council’s decision to reduce the department’s manpower by 100, President Donald Trump asked New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to “hire back” those officers that he suggested were fired following the defunding of the New York Police Department (NYPD) by almost a billion dollars. In June, the city officials of the Big Apple agreed to slash the police department’s annual budget from $6.1 billion to $5.2 billion.
Trump, who reacted to Carmen Best’s exit as a “tragic mistake” made by Seattle, said on Tuesday, August 11, afternoon that he wanted to address the issues of violence, loot and riots that are taking place in the “Democratic-controlled cities of New York, Portland, Chicago and Seattle”.
On the situation in NYC which is his hometown, the president said Mayor de Blasio “should immediately hire back all of the police who were fired without justification”. He slammed the Democrats, alleging the firing of the police officers is a part of the opponent party’s "Defund the Police". He said NYC's "finest" should be hired back. The president, who has always been vocal against the call to defund the police in the wake of the race riots following the brutal killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May, said the rise in crime rates in New York was due to the fact that the Dems-run cities were surrendering before the Left activists. He said the rest of the US should see the situation in NY as a warning.
“They want to pass federal legislation gutting and hamstringing every police department in America. They want to end cash bail; close prisons; defund police departments - or at least largely defund,” Trump said. “You see that with New York. A billion dollars they took out of their police department, and crime has gone through the roof. And appoint far-left prosecutors who side with the criminals and target law-abiding citizens,” he added. Trump also said that what is being seen in cities like Portland, Chicago, New York and Seattle gives an impression of the Democratic roadmap for the US. “They want every city in America to resemble Portland, in a form,” he said.
Trump trying to distract, counters de Blasio
De Blasio responded to the GOP leader saying the latter was “making things up” to distract the public attention from his own slashing of budgets. In a tweet, he asked the president to pass another coronavirus stimulus bill, saying: “@realdonaldtrump is making stuff up about America’s cities because he wants you to forget that he’s cutting Social Security, Medicare and unemployment during a pandemic. We’re not falling for it. Pass a stimulus.”
.@realDonaldTrump is making stuff up about America’s cities because he wants you to forget that he’s cutting Social Security, Medicare and unemployment during a pandemic.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) August 11, 2020
We’re not falling for it. Pass a stimulus.
The NYPD dismantled its plain-clothes anti-crime unit in June — a move that fueled more controversies. Over a third of the $1 billion reduction would come, in the estimation of Mayor de Blasio, from reducing overtime. The NYPD's eventual expenses always exceeded the budget because of overtime as it ended up with an expenditure of more than $6 billion in the fiscal year 2020 that ended June 30, according to City & State, New York.