Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday on MSNBC’s broadcast of “Morning Joe” that all Trump Organization contracts with the city will be terminated.
De Blasio cited “criminal activity” by President Donald Trump as the legal reasoning for severing the contracts, blaming him for inciting the violence that occurred at the United States Capitol last Wednesday.
“I’m here to announce that the city of New York is severing all contracts with the Trump Organization. Our legal team has done an assessment, and the contracts make very clear, if a company, the leadership of that company is engaged in criminal activity, we have the right to sever the contract,” De Blasio said. “So the city of New York will no longer have anything to do with the Trump Organization. They have profited from these contracts. They will profit no longer.” (RELATED: De Blasio, Schumer Appear To Ignore Coronavirus Rules During Biden Celebration)
De Blasio said Tuesday that the city was looking to cancel the contracts and that they were “under review” but had not gone into detail about the contracts that were in place. After making the announcement he was asked by host Mika Brzezinski what the contracts covered and what it would take to complete the terminations.
“Right now the Trump Organization profits about $17 million a year from these contracts that cover four different sites. Three in Manhattan. One in the Bronx. A different entertainment site,” De Blasio explained. He continued by stating that because “the President of the United States directed a mob to attack the U.S. Congress during the Electoral College vote” there were “grounds for severing these contracts.”
Host Willie Geist then asked De Blasio what challenges he expected to face while going through the process of severing the contracts and noted that they would would probably hear from Trump publicly.
“What’s obvious is these are sites that we want to continue serving the public, but not with an organization led by a criminal,” De Blasio said. “So we will get new vendors to come in and take them over quickly. I want to see the service continue. Of course we know the history of the Trump Organization. They will likely challenge us in court, but we’re on strong legal ground. We’re very clear about that.”