President Trump on Friday singled out his hometown New York City and what he called its “radical left” mayor for its recent spike in violent crime.
His comments at a White House gathering of police leaders were the only most recent in a string of barbs aimed at Mayor de Blasio and the city. Trump has also condemned how New York conducted its June primary elections.
Trump has leveled the criticism as the country sees its sharpest economic contraction on record and as he faces a reelection challenge in fewer than 100 days.
New York is experiencing a crime uptick “because you have a radical left mayor who doesn’t know what he’s doing,” the president said Friday. "He doesn’t know what he’s doing. I don’t understand even how the police can allow it to happen.”
Trump has also repeatedly held up New York’s pandemic election, including the volume of invalidated votes, as apparent evidence that the mail-in voting process is ripe for fraud.
De Blasio has pushed back forcefully on Trump, each benefitting politically from attacking the other.
Asked Thursday about the president’s tweet proposing a delay of the presidential election — a move Trump does not have the authority to make — de Blasio called the suggestion the “act of a tyrant.”
The Republican and Democrat also have gone back and forth over the Black Lives Matter mural de Blasio had painted on Fifth Avenue in front of Trump’s namesake tower.
Friday's Cabinet Room roundtable of National Association of Police Organizations leadership included Pat Lynch, president of the NYPD’s Police Benevolent Association.
Lynch laid into de Blasio for what he sees as the mayor’s failure to support his police.
“In our city, we’re going through a difficult time,” Lynch said. “We have a progressive mayor that’s anti-police, a City Council that’s anti-police and a statehouse that’s anti-police.”
Trump in his remarks additionally condemned the leaderships of other Democratic-run cities. He has threatened to send federal law enforcement to New York to address protesters and crime.