NYC Comptroller Stringer. Photo: Black Star News
New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer says President Donald Trump’s tweets are “idiotic,” “harmful,” “embarrassing,” and “not presidential,” but he’s against curbing them; he also says the tweets have become the best mobilizing tool for opposition to Trump’s administration and to the Republicans.
Trump Wednesday signed two executive orders, including for the construction of the wall between the U.S. and Mexico and vowed a “crackdown” on so-called sanctuary cities like New York that offer relief to immigrants. (Separately, Trump tweeted today that if Mexico isn’t willing to pay for the wall his scheduled Jan. 31 meeting with President Enrique Pena Nieto should be cancelled).
Asked whether some of Trump’s tweets — about sending troops to Chicago to quell urban violence, his promise to cut off federal funding to sanctuary cities, in addition to the one about the wall — were of such concern that maybe Twitter should consider a “Trump Rule,” Stringer paused for a few seconds before responding.
“A Trump rule, you may be on to something,” he said, but then quickly continued: “Now look, I think the tweets are going to grow old as time goes on. I mean they are novel messages right now; they are harmful. Look he’s entitled to free speech just like we are. So he has a right to be on Twitter. But it’s unprofessional. It’s not presidential.”
Stringer spoke after he made a presentation today about the City’s contingency plans to deal with the impact of any possible cuts to sanctuary cities. He addressed New York’s community and ethnic media at the City University’s Graduate School of Journalism, as part of a periodic ” Newsmaker” engagement moderated by Errol Louis, who’s also host of NY1 News’ “Inside City Hall.”
Stringer said New York could potentially lose up to $7 billion in federal funding but added that “I don’t think we’ll get anywhere close to that.” Still, he added, of any cuts “It’s going to be a challenge to our city and state budget potentially and I do think there has to be various scenarios to preserve the safety net and to make sure the city is whole.”
“It’s not helpful to whatever goals he has and quite frankly, it’s mobilizing the country in a way that we never could have imagined,” Stringer added, of Trump’s tweets. “So the more he tweets the more people are mobilized. The more people get politically engaged, the more they say ‘enough it enough.'”
Earlier while responding to a question from a member of the ethnic media about whether some of Trump’s aggressive policies could spark upheavals and cause breakdown in law-and-order Stringer said, “We have to do everything that we can to preserve our democracy. To respect law.”
He said one effective strategy for dealing with Trump is to follow Michelle Obama’s suggestion — “When they go low, we go high.”
“I don’t think we expected them to go quite so low so fast,” Stringer continued. “But if we keep going high, alongside other strategies to deal with the people who are going low, I think we will get through this. I think we will get through this but this is going to be a very challenging time.”
“No one has seen this,” he continued, referring to Trump. “It’s idiotic. The things he says or tweets. It is just an embarrassment for this country.”
He said it was no wonder “no one showed up” to Trump’s inauguration because even his supporters were now embarrassed.
Referring to the Republican retreat in Philadelphia that ended today, Stringer said “I wanna be in the room with some of those Republicans [who are probably saying] ‘Oh, my God! What have we done?’ It’s unbelievable with Donald Trump. This is really a problem for them.”
Ironically, Trump’s tweets were backfiring and mobilizing opposition that could translate into electoral gains for Democrats in mid-term elections, Stringer said.
“One good election cycle could fix this,” he said, adding that the Democrats could “take back the Senate,” and “make a dent” on Congress.
