Rudy Giuliani: Where is NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio?
'The mayor should step down. He is incompetent,' Giuliani said
Former New York City Mayor and President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani railed against the Big Apple’s current mayor, Bill de Blasio, saying none of the riots would have happened in the area if he was “vaguely competent,” and called for him to step down.
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“I haven’t seen de Blasio at the scene of any of these things. I would have been at the scene of every single one – and there would have only been one, and it would have been over.”
Giuliani, a Republican who ran the city from 1994 to 2001, told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo that de Blasio, a Democrat, needs to “get out of the way and let someone activate the police department” or else he believes lives will be lost.
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“We’ve watched now over and over again people looting, throwing Molotov cocktails, burning cars and now putting our police in hospitals and virtually no major arrests are made,” Giuliani said Tuesday morning on “Mornings with Maria.” “The mayor should step down. He is incompetent … In other cities, they’re activating the National Guard. In New York City we have to activate the New York City Police Department.”
Giuliani defended the NYPD, saying they’re “being used as punching bags, and then he has the audacity to criticize them for being too brutal."
Police arrive at Macy's mall after it was broken into by people hours after a solidarity rally calling for justice over the death of George Floyd Monday, June 1, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
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Police said nearly 700 people were arrested and several officers were injured during the chaos Monday night and early Tuesday.
Protests flared in response to the death of George Floyd, a black man who died last Monday after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd's neck for at least eight minutes.
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Floyd, who was in handcuffs at the time, died after the officer ignored bystander shouts to get off him and Floyd's cries that he couldn't breathe. His death, captured on video, sparked days of protests in Minneapolis that have spread to cities around America.
New York police detain people Tuesday, June 2, 2020, about an hour past an 11 pm curfew that is being enforced following unrest in the wake of the death of George Floyd. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
“Who has seen these mayors at night?” he asked. “Do you think if I had riots like this I’d be home at night? You could see me only in the morning at a safe press conference? Or do you think you see me there with the cops?"
Public and elected officials have said the protests have devolved in some cases into organized riots, including some led by white supremacy and Antifa groups.
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“I haven’t seen de Blasio at the scene of any of these things. I would have been at the scene of every single one – and there would have only been one, and it would have been over.”
New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. (Photo by Bolivar Arellano/New York Post Archives /(c) NYP Holdings, Inc. via Getty Images)
Giuliani emphasized that the NYPD doesn’t need to be told to do its job.
“All you have to do is step aside, these will be over in one night. That’s what happened in Crown Heights.”
Police subdue a suspected rioter at Utica Ave. and President St. in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Rioting erupted after a black 7-year-old was fatally struck by a car driven by a member of the Hasidic Jewish community. (Al Aaronson/NY Daily News Archive v
The Crown Heights race riots of August 1991, when a riot broke out in the Brooklyn area after 7-year-old Gavin Cato, who was black, was struck and killed by a car in a rabbi’s motorcade. Hours later, a Jewish doctoral student, Yankel Rosenbaum, was stabbed to death. Four days of violence followed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.