Too often, insidious forces use local government to advance divisive agendas with little regard for how it hurts everyday New Yorkers.

extremism is growing in our politics.

Authoritarians rely on the perception of power.

The Trump administration… rely on everyone complying in advance out of fear…. we cannot be scared of this administration.

In order to mask that reality, Donald Trump is trying to take control of the media, using extortion style tactics.

People started to say, if you comply with authoritarianism, we are going to vote with our pocketbook.

If someone constantly reports, even when you say otherwise, that you’re leaving the race the next day, you’re leaving the race the next day, you lose your funders and your donors.

No, I can’t say that.

We’ve got to make the right decision. I’ll make the right decision for the city of New York, a city I love.

What you have witnessed over the last three years and eight months is a consistent narrative that has been created: The second Black mayor is corrupt, the second Black mayor is incompetent.

I will continue to embrace it.

We hear you, New Yorkers. We hear you. And if we can put money back in your pockets through an ‘inflation rebate,’ then you know we care about you.

I can’t even begin to explain the offense that that brings to New Yorkers across the five boroughs.

It’s outrageous that Donald Trump and his administration and political hacks connected to them continue to violate the law.

Everyone should be held in the same laws.

And amidst this horror, we have seen the current mayor abdicate that responsibility entirely. This is a position that has been described as having the second-largest bully pulpit in the country.

One of the key responsibilities in leadership is telling New Yorkers what you deem to be acceptable in the conduct as it pertains to federal government and politics across this country.

Yet what shocked us was not simply that act, but was the fact that we knew that act is taking place every day across this country, oftentimes unseen, unnoticed and unabashed in its cruelty.