NYC cuts Trump ties
NEW YORK CITY will terminate business contracts with President Donald Trump after last week’s insurrection at the US Capitol, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced.
The Trump Organisation is under city contract to operate the two ice rinks and amusement park in Central Park, as well as a golf course in the Bronx.
The Trump Organisation profits about $17 million (£12.5 million) a year from those sites, Mr de Blasio said.
“I’m here to announce that the city of New York is severing all contracts with the Trump Organisation,” Mr de Blasio said.
It is the latest example of how the January 6 breach by violent Trump supporters is impacting the Republican president’s business interests.
The PGA of America voted on Sunday to take the PGA Championship away from his New Jersey golf course next year, a move that came after social media platforms disabled Mr Trump’s accounts and Shopify took down online stores affiliated with him.
Mr De Blasio had said earlier that the city was examining its legal options to end the Trump contracts.
He added that city lawyers determined that if Mr Trump sues over the move, the city will win.
Mr Trump “incited a mob to attack the Capitol”, Mr de Blasio said. “The lawyers looked at it and it was just as clear as a bell that’s grounds for severing these contracts and we’re moving to do that right away.”
The move came as US House of Representatives last night rushed ahead towards impeaching Mr Trump for the deadly Capitol attack.
Already scheduled to leave office next week, Mr Trump was on the verge of becoming the only president in history to be impeached twice. His incendiary rhetoric at a rally ahead of the Capitol uprising is now in the impeachment charge against him — which was being debated last night — even as the falsehoods he spread about election fraud are still being championed by some Republicans.
The House on Tuesday night approved a Democrat-led resolution urging Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove Mr Trump with a cabinet vote, although the vice president had already said he would not do so.
The resolution, passed 223-205 almost entirely along party lines, urged him to “declare what is obvious to a horrified nation: That the president is unable to successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office”.
Mr Pence had told House speaker Nancy Pelosi it would not be in the best interest of the nation and it was “time to unite our country as we prepare to inaugurate presidentelect Joe Biden”.