’How would he know? He’s a Florida resident’: New Yorkers scorch Trump’s ‘ghost town’ debate dis
Stay in your lane, Florida Man.
New Yorkers scoffed Friday at President Trump’s claim that the city has turned into “a ghost town” and noted that he wouldn’t know the first thing about it since he doesn’t even call the Big Apple home anymore.
“How would he know? He’s a Florida resident now,” State Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Democrat who represents parts of lower Manhattan and Midtown, told the Daily News. “It’s tone-deaf and absurd that someone who used to live in Trump Tower and didn’t leave his gilded cage other than to get into his limousine can pretend to be an expert on New York.”
Trump delivered the broadside against his old hometown while railing against the city’s coronavirus restrictions during his final debate with Joe Biden on Thursday night.
“If you go and look at what has happened to New York, it’s a ghost town. Take a look at what’s happening to New York. It’s dying,” Trump said.
The Queens-born president, who continues to dismiss the importance of social distancing and face masks despite the U.S. coronavirus death toll surpassing 225,000, took particular issue with the plexiglass barriers that some city restaurants are putting in between tables to prevent COVID-19 spread.
“When you talk about plexiglass, these are restaurants that are dying. These are businesses with no money. Putting up plexiglass is unbelievably expensive and it’s not the answer. I mean, you’re going to sit there in a cubicle wrapped in plastic? These are businesses that are dying," Trump claimed.
But City Councilman Mark Levine (D-Harlem, Washington Heights) posted a video clip on Twitter of a Manhattan restaurant with plexiglass precautions that was bustling with outdoor dining activity Thursday night while Trump was on the debate sage in Nashville.
“Looks terrifying,” Manhattan resident Melissa Goodman tweeted with a laughing emoji in response to Levine’s video.
Though many public schools have reopened and the city’s nightlife has bounced back somewhat with the introduction of outdoor dining and open streets, Mayor de Blasio noted that many New Yorkers are still struggling because of financial fallout from the pandemic.
De Blasio said it was thereby “pitiful” for Trump to take “ghost town” potshots when he has for months refused to work with congressional Democrats to appropriate relief for New York’s struggling local governments, unemployed workers and small businesses.
“He’s putting the onus on the people who are suffering but still fighting back, rather than acknowledging his responsibility, because he wasn’t here for us when we needed testing, or when we needed a stimulus for our recovery," de Blasio said in a morning appearance on MSNBC. "He’s been missing in action.”
After spending his whole life as a New York City resident, Trump registered his private Palm Beach, Fla., club as his permanent domicile last year because he claimed in a tweet that he had “been treated very badly by the political leaders of both the city and state.” He has only been back to New York once in the past year and a half.
Hoylman, the state senator, said New York won’t shed any tears if Trump stays away for good.
“This is a man who needs to give back his citizen card to New York City,” Hoylman said. “We don’t claim him, we don’t want to see him back in new York, he’s now a Florida resident — good riddance.”
Sam Biederman, an assistant commissioner at the City Parks Department, suggested with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek that Trump may just have been embracing the spirit of the season by lobbing the debate dis at New York.
“New York IS a ghost town but only because it’s nearly Halloween, then we go back to being a squirrel town,” Biederman tweeted.
Comedian Samantha Bee offered another sardonic explanation for Trump’s comments.
“He thinks New York is a ghost town because every time he’s here all he hears is ‘Booo,’” Bee tweeted.
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