President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign was endorsed Friday by the City of New York Police Volunteer Association (NYCPBA).
Trump has strongly supported U.S. lawmakers in the face of nationwide protests against racism and police brutality. In June, Trump referred to himself as “your law and order president.” The Trump administration has vehemently rejected the move to defend police departments. In July, the New York City Council approved $ 1 billion in budget cuts for the New York Police Department. Police groups and President Trump decided the move.
NYCPBA President Patrick Lynch said he could not remember a time in 36 years when the NYCPBA had endorsed every presidential candidate ‘so far’.
“Many times people say that a union like ours gives legislative groups distinctions,” Lynch told Trump. “Not in the New York City PBA, sir. In the New York City PBA, sir, you deserve the remark and you deserve this remark. I’m proud to give it.”
Get your unlimited Newsweek trial>
Trump thanked Lynch for the signature.
“I assumed it was issued,” Trump said, “because I see a lot of things that have been issued and they should not be issued.”
Lynch criticized local and state government leaders for “passing on this false narrative that New York City police officers and law enforcement are evil. How absurd is that? That they blame us for the diseases of society?”
Get your unlimited Newsweek trial>
Lynch referred to members of the NYPD as “the most compassionate people on the face of the earth.”
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Alex Wong / Getty
President Trump told attendees that his agenda is “anti-crime and pro-cop all the way and that’s what it should be.” Trump said that if presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wins the election, Biden’s police strategy would be “modeled on the Bill de Blasio disaster” in New York City.
In July, Blasio said the cuts to the NYPD budget were the “right thing to do.” To impact the reduction in police funding, the NYPD is expected to remove 1,163 officers from its ranks.
“It will take work,” said the Blasio. “It will take effort and we will reform that work in the meantime.”
Trump said in June that his administration would not allow a defundering of the police. “There will be no dismantling of police, and no police will be disbanded,” Trump said. Trump has claimed that Joe Biden supports the movement to defend the police, a claim that Biden has denied, instead calling on the police to receive more funding.
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who also spoke at the NYCPBA meeting on Friday, attacked the presidential record of Biden’s running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. Giuliani said that when Harris was California’s attorney general, “she persecuted small people, but she would not prosecute large people.”
“Tell me this is not a terrible person,” Giuliani admitted, referring to Harris.
