NYC cutting ties with Trump Organization
NEW YORK — New York City announced Wednesday that it would terminate its contracts with the Trump Organization after the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The decision by Mayor Bill de Blasio was another blow to Trump’s prestige in New York.
De Blasio said he was severing ties with the Trump Organization because Trump had incited violence at the Capitol.
“Inciting an insurrection against the U.S. government clearly constitutes criminal activity,” de Blasio said in an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday. “The City of New York will no longer have anything to do with the Trump Organization.”
The city is moving to cancel contracts at two ice-skating rinks at Central Park, the Central Park Carousel and the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, a city-owned golf course in the Bronx. The Trump Organization has had profits of about $17 million a year from the contracts, de Blasio said.
While the city has considered canceling the contracts before, de Blasio said the violence in Washington qualified as criminal activity under which New York City had the right to sever ties with a company.
De Blasio, a Democrat with roughly a year left in office, said he expected the Trump Organization to challenge the city’s decision in court.
“We’re on strong legal ground,” the mayor said.
A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, Amanda Miller, vowed to fight the decision.
“The City of New York has no legal right to end our contracts and if they elect to proceed, they will owe the Trump Organization over $30 million,” she said in a statement. “This is nothing more than political discrimination, an attempt to infringe on the First Amendment and we plan to fight vigorously.”
Many companies and institutions have moved to cut ties with the president and his family after the riot, including the 2022 PGA Championship, which will no longer be held at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
Trump’s name had already been stripped from private properties, including the Trump SoHo hotel, now the Dominick, and some former Trump Place condominiums in Manhattan.
The Trump Organization operates Wollman Rink, near Central Park’s southern edge, and Lasker Rink, in the northern end of the park. Both contracts were set to expire in April.
De Blasio’s office said it was notifying the Trump Organization that the city was starting the process of canceling the agreements. The cancellation for the carousel, which is currently closed, would take effect in 25 days; the skating rinks would take effect in 30 days, city officials said. The golf course contract is more complex and could take several months to void.
De Blasio said Wednesday that the city’s deal for the golf course with the Trump Organization “never should have been made in the first place.” He said the city planned to find new vendors for the sites.
Hits to Trump’s business empire are part of a liberal “cancel culture,” his son, Eric, said Tuesday, saying his father will leave the presidency with a powerful brand backed by millions of voters who will follow him “to the ends of the Earth.”
De Blasio first proposed severing the city’s ties with the company in 2015, when Trump made comments disparaging Hispanic people. But some legal experts argued then that voiding the contracts would not hold up in court.