Former New York City Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani blasted the city’s current Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying that he had made a number of “drastic mistakes.”
Giuliani weighed in on the recent spike in violent crime — coupled with de Blasio’s decision to disband the city’s anti-crime unit — during a Wednesday morning appearance on “Fox & Friends.” (RELATED: ‘Serious Credibility Problem’: CNN’s Jake Tapper Warns Against Making Parnas ‘The Second Coming Of Theodore Roosevelt’)
WATCH:
“Mr. Mayor, Brooklyn Borough President Adams held up two baby shoes of a 1-year-old and talked about the latest victim of gun violence, and he called on the mayor to bring back the 1600 men and women force of the anticrime unit that might have been able to prevent a shooting like this,” host Brian Kilmeade began. “Will he listen?”
“First of all, Eric is absolutely right,” Giuliani replied, saying that disbanding the anti-crime unit was just one of a number of “drastic mistakes” de Blasio had made since taking office. “That unit — I started that unit, it was originally called the street crime unit. They are the people who straightened out Times Square for me, the people who straightened out Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, and their expertise was taking guns from people.”
Giuliani went on to argue that simple gun control laws were useless and ineffective, adding, “Bad people don’t control their guns.”
He noted that he had initially implemented the “Stop, Question, Frisk” strategy — which was held up as constitutional by Eric Holder and Janet Reno. “I convinced them it was constitutional. I limited it to 100,000 per year,” Giuliani added, noting the the uptick in later years was what had ultimately led to mistakes and abuse of the program. “It went up to 600,000 and they started to make a lot of mistakes.”
Host Steve Doocy went on to ask about de Blasio’s apparent strategy, which began with the dissolution of the anti-crime unit and a $1 billion reduction in funding to the NYPD.
“He said bring the community out to take back the community,” Doocy explained.
“They will get shot. The community will get shot,” Giuliani replied.