Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Donald Trump

Donald Trump

  • Trump’s State of the Union, Kavanaugh’s Dissent, and the Coordinated Attempt to Ban All Safe, Legal Abortion

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    (photo: Governor's office)


    Last week, new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh showed his true colors when it comes to access to safe, legal abortion. His dissent in the Louisiana case completely disregarded legal precedent and revealed his hostility to Roe v. Wade and subsequent Supreme Court cases upholding the law.

    Earlier in the week, President Trump used the highest office in the country to continue his misinformed, divisive brand of extremist politics, including by fear-mongering about abortion law in New York. This is not a drill: our

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  • The Government Shutdown and Trump’s War on the Safety Net

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    City Council Member Stephen Levin, the author


    We have now reached the longest government shutdown in history with no plans for reaching a deal anytime soon. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers’ jobs have been impacted and the shutdown has delayed mortgage applications, caused significant Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) staffing callouts, impacted basic healthcare access for Native Americans, and created waste pile-ups at national parks. Federal employees have even ...

  • Protect New Yorkers from Washington’s Cruel Actions, Oppose ‘Public Charge’ Change

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    (photo via the New York City Council)


    When we look from our community in Brooklyn to the New York Harbor, we see the Statue of Liberty, a tangible symbol of America’s great tradition of welcoming immigrants seeking to make a better life. Every day in Sunset Park, Red Hook, Bay Ridge, and elsewhere in Brooklyn we see the contributions new Americans are making to the economic and cultural vitality of our neighborhoods, just as generations of immigrants before them contributed.

    But America’s great tradition of diversity and inclusion is under attack by the Trump

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  • Molinaro Reveals Reason He Didn’t Vote for Trump

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    Marc Molinaro during Tuesday's debate (photo via @CBSNewYork)


    Marc Molinaro, the Republican nominee for governor of New York, has long-insisted that he did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016, saying that he “had significant differences at the time” and decided to write in former Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson for president.

    As he’s tried to straddle the Trump divide in the New York Republican Party and appeal to independent and moderate voters in an uphill quest to

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  • Without the Federal Government But With New York, Puerto Rico Endures

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    (photo via the Governor's office)


    Loíza is a town on the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico, home to almost 30,000 American citizens. For 72 hours last September, as Hurricane Maria ravaged the island and other territories in the Caribbean, Loíza and all of its residents became isolated from the outside world when the three main roads that connect this medium-sized town to the rest of the island became impassable. 

    The challenges that residents of Loíza faced and continue to deal with are not only emblematic of the lack of resources invested

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: City Council Member Joe Borelli

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    Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits


    May 7, 2018 - Max & Murphy Podcast: City Council Member Joe Borelli

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    Joseph Borelli is a City Council member, former state Assembly member, Staten Islander, conservative Republican, and outspoken Donald Trump supporter. On the podcast, Borelli discusses his district, his constituents

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  • Marc Molinaro and The Trump Question

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    Marc Molinaro, left, and Chris Gibson (photo: @marcmolinaro)


    The presumptive Republican nominee for governor of New York did not vote for the Republican president of the United States.

    One question Marc Molinaro was asked most often in the early weeks of his campaign to replace Governor Andrew Cuomo is whether he voted for Donald Trump in November 2016.

    “I did not, I voted for Chris Gibson,” Molinaro told reporters in Albany on April 2, the day of his official campaign launch, naming the former Congressional representative who

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  • As Trump Pushes Deportations, Volunteers Intensify Immigrant-Accompaniment Program

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    A New Sanctuary Coalition "Jericho walk" (photo: Katrina Shakarian)


    The day before Thanksgiving, a group of volunteers met Manuel, an asylum seeker from El Salvador, in back of the Dunkin Donuts at 321 Broadway in Manhattan, to accompany him to his immigration court hearing at 26 Federal Plaza.

    The volunteers were part of the New Sanctuary Coalition’s accompaniment program, which trains people to accompany undocumented immigrants on check-ins with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

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  • Under Trump, A Potential Silver Lining for NYCHA

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    NYCHA and the city (photo: @ZodetN)


    Since the January inauguration of Donald Trump as president, department heads and administrators throughout New York City government have been bracing for negative reverberations, with many expecting slashed federal spending and harmful policy rollbacks.

    At least one city agency sees a potential silver lining. Shola Olatoye, the chair and CEO of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) – the authority tasked with running public housing serving about 400,000 city residents – has sent a letter to the federal Department of

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  • Cuomo Refuses to Comply with Trump Election Commission Request

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    New Yorkers cast their votes for President (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)


    New York has joined the ranks of states refusing to comply with a request for voter information sent yesterday by Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State and vice chair of the newly-created federal Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

    “We will not be complying with this request and I encourage the Election Commission to work on issues of vital importance to voters, including ballot access, rather

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  • Focused on Fighting Trump, is Schneiderman Looking Away from Albany Reform?

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    AG Eric Schneiderman (photo: @Schneiderman)


    New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has quickly become one of President Donald Trump’s leading opponents, using the levers of his office to litigate against Trump’s policies, and has put New York at the forefront of efforts to resist the new Republican administration’s agenda.

    Speaking at a Tuesday breakfast event hosted by the Association For A Better New York (ABNY), Schneiderman, a second-term Democrat, discussed his role in the Trump era, which has made his focus

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  • New York Must Take Action Against Corporate Backers of Hate

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    Assemblymember Moya, the author, speaks at a rally (photo: Make The Road New York)


    Make the Road New York and the Center for Popular Democracy recently exposed President Trump’s corporate “backers of hate,” companies that stand to profit off an agenda so steeped in hate, prejudice, and greed, you would have to be willfully blind not to see it.

    Nothing is more dangerous than business as usual when it is conducted in a moral vacuum, and these companies have been

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  • Calling Trump’s Big Lie What It Is

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    (photo: @NYPDRecruit)


    Upping the immigration deportation ante, a San Francisco federal judge found “irreparable harm” and ordered a national preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump’s threat of cutting off law enforcement funds to “sanctuary cities” that defiantly refused to comply with his deportation policy.

    Under the proposed Trump policy, cities would lose funding if undocumented and even legal immigrants are not reported to federal authorities for deportation after being charged with low-level criminal offenses, such as

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  • Trump’s Victory, De Blasio’s State of the City

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    Mayor de Blasio at Trump Tower (photo: Gotham Gazette)


    Perhaps so as not to pour salt in the wound, Mayor Bill de Blasio took a few days to give his assessment of what went wrong for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. But, since he started to explain his take on how the Democrats blew it and the country wound up with Donald Trump as President, de Blasio has laid out in sharp terms what he believes should have been done differently.

    “I think the campaign became about the wrong thing,” de Blasio said during a February 10 taping of Pod Save

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  • Federal 'Wait and See' Dominates First City Budget Hearing

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    Council Finance Chair Ferreras-Copeland (two photos: William Alatriste/City Council)


    The City Council held its first hearing on Thursday to examine Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $84.7 billion preliminary budget for fiscal year 2018, starting the next phase in a months-long process to determine the city’s spending priorities amid broad uncertainty about its fiscal future.

    Roughly $7 billion in federal funding to the city is threatened by the proposed policies of the Trump administration and the Republican Congress in

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  • Trump's Speech, a Nightmare for Democrats

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    President Donald Trump (photo: @POTUS)


    In the weeks before Donald Trump’s address to Congress, the main topic of conversation among Democrats was not how to make the president look incompetent and unfit—it was how to best exploit the fact that he so clearly is.

    We underestimated him.

    In the biggest political rope-a-dope of all time, after setting the bar as low as he could during 40 days of tumultuous terribleness and a chaotic campaign, Trump delivered a well-crafted, coherent and populist-yet-serious speech on Tuesday night. His presidency

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  • Broken Windows Policing Will Fuel the Trump Deportation Machine

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    City Council Member Rory Lancman, the author (photo: @RoryLancman)


    We’re now more than 30 days into Donald Trump’s presidency, and it is already crystal clear that the hostile and offensive rhetoric he used toward immigrants on the campaign trail will be put into practice by his administration.

    It was just this week that Trump’s Department of Homeland Security issued ...

  • Schneiderman: ‘Not one single substantiated claim of voter fraud in New York last year’

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    AG Eric Schneiderman voting


    New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman responded to a congressional inquiry Wednesday, making clear that there was “not one single substantiated claim of voter fraud in New York last year.”

    In a letter, addressed to Reps. Elijah Cummings, Robert Brady, and James Clyburn, Schneiderman emphasized the real voting challenges in New York are those that disenfranchise potential voters, rather than the “imaginary problem of voter fraud.”

    “New York’s voting system faces many challenges,” Schneiderman wrote, with restrictive

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  • The Best Way to Ensure New York Election Integrity? Modernize!

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    Governor Andrew Cuomo votes (photo: The Governor's Office on Flickr)


    The Trump administration has made a series of unsupported claims about voter fraud that strike at the heart and integrity of our democracy. Beyond potentially undermining voters’ faith in our electoral system, these claims distract from a very real issue: New York’s voter registration system is badly in need of modernization.

    Last month, President Trump repeated his unsubstantiated

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  • New York Reasserts Its Historic Leadership as a Haven for Immigrants

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    Governor Andrew Cuomo (photo: Kevin Coughlin/The Governor's office)


    New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has joined the chorus of criticism against President Trump’s ban on refugees and other immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim nations. “I never thought I’d see the day when refugees who have fled war-torn countries in search of a better life would be turned away at our doorstep," the governor said in a statement

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  • Citing Trump Threat, Assembly Passes New Immigrant Protections Along With DREAM Act

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    Assembly Speaker Heastie (photo: @CarlHeastie) 


    The New York State Assembly passed a slew of bills on Monday aimed at protecting immigrant New Yorkers in the wake of the federal government’s anti-immigrant crackdown which sparked protests at airports around the country last week.

    The legislative package, called the New York State Liberty

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  • Responding to Trump’s Sanctuary City Threat

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    President Trump signs an order (photo: @realDonaldTrump)


    One of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders is to declare war on 39 sanctuary cities – New York, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, to name a few – and hundreds of other sanctuary municipalities and counties in the United States that are safe harbors for undocumented immigrants.

    The threat is clear.

    If our sanctuary cities do not enforce Trump’s executive order, by notifying federal authorities of undocumented immigrants accused of criminal offenses, a sanctuary city will

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  • With Trump in Office, New York Democrats Show Urgency, and Infighting, on Women's Rights

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    Cuomo in 2013, via The Governor's Office on flickr


    With President Donald Trump taking office and Congressional Republicans chipping away at the Affordable Care Act, including a provision that guarantees cost-free birth control, New York’s Democratic lawmakers are scrambling to fortify protections for women on the state level.

    Citing the threat of Trump’s administration, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that he has instructed the Department of Financial Services -- which regulates insurance companies -- to require commercial insurance

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  • Fighting Back in the Trump Era

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    Corey Johnson, the author (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    January 20 marked the beginning of a dangerous new era for our country. For the first time in many of our lives, we now have a president who rose to office on the power of racist, sexist, classist, and xenophobic campaign promises. These are promises he is already working to keep.

    Of course, Donald Trump's agenda does not truly represent our nation. The day after his inauguration, millions of people marched in cities around the world to reject Trump’s divisive

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  • The Week Ahead in New York Politics, January 16

    New York City Hall

    New York City Hall


    What to watch for this week in New York politics:

    The week begins with the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, and many celebrations and services around the city, state, and country. Mayor Bill de Blasio will speak at three different events to mark the holiday, then appear in the evening on NY1. Later in the week, de Blasio is set to participate on Thursday in a large New York City rally aimed at sending a message to the incoming Trump administration -- see details

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