Waiting In The Wings

As usual, Donald Trump just couldn't help himself yesterday afternoon.

 

President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. government would not deliver a coronavirus vaccine to New York if and when one is available.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo “will have to let us know when he’s ready for it because otherwise, we can’t be delivering it to a state that won’t be giving it to its people immediately,” Trump said during a press conference from the White House Rose Garden.

“He doesn’t trust where the vaccine is coming from,” Trump added. “These are coming from the greatest companies anywhere in the world, greatest labs in the world, but he doesn’t trust the fact that it’s this White House, this administration, so we won’t be delivering it to New York until we have authorization to do so, and that pains me to say that.”

On MSNBC shortly after Trump’s comments, Cuomo said, “None of what [Trump] said is true. Surprise, surprise.”

“I have been an outspoken opponent to many of Trump’s policies over the last four years,” he said, adding that Trump lost in New York in the presidential election by “huge margin” and state prosecutors are also investigating the president for tax fraud.

“So, he has issues with New York and he likes to point to New York,” Cuomo said. “But this is his issue. It’s his credibility issue. It’s the fear that he politicized the health process of this nation, which is a well-founded fear.” 

 

Knowing full well why New York state was singled out (as opposed to say, California or Illinois), NY AG Letitia James made it very clear she will not be blackmailed into dropping her ongoing investigation into the Trump crime family. 

Attorney General Letitia James released a response Friday evening, saying:

“This is nothing more than vindictive behavior by a lame-duck president trying to extract vengeance on those who oppose his politics. Once there is a fully-developed COVID-19 vaccine, we are confident that a Biden-Harris Administration will provide New York with the proper number of doses so that our state’s residents can achieve immunity. If dissemination of the vaccine takes place in the twilight of a Trump Administration and the president wants to play games with people’s lives, we will sue and we will win.”

 

Steve M. does bring up a good point though. Where could Trump be tried in New York that won't immediately devolve into chaos or deadly violence by his terrorist cultists? New York City hasn't exactly shined when it comes to the "Trials of the Century".

It all has me thinking back to a moment in early 2010: 

The Obama administration on Friday gave up on its plan to try the Sept. 11 plotters in Lower Manhattan, bowing to almost unanimous pressure from New York officials and business leaders to move the terrorism trial elsewhere....

... resistance had been gathering steam.

After a dinner in New York on Dec. 14, Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, pulled aside David Axelrod, President Obama’s closest adviser, to convey an urgent plea: move the 9/11 trial out of Manhattan.

More recently, in a series of presentations to business leaders, local elected officials and community representatives of Chinatown, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly laid out his plan for securing the trial: blanketing a swath of Lower Manhattan with police checkpoints, vehicle searches, rooftop snipers and canine patrols.

“They were not received well,” said one city official.

And on Tuesday, in a meeting [Mayor Mike] Bloomberg had with at least two dozen federal judges on the eighth floor of their Manhattan courthouse, one judge raised the question of security. The mayor, according to several people present, said he was sure the courthouse could be made safe, but that it would be costly and difficult.

I thought this was outrageous at the time -- we should have been able to show that we could try these people in U.S. courts, as a demonstration that the Bush's administration's approach to them was preposterous -- but I acknowledge that securing the area would have been difficult.

I think a trial of Donald Trump in Manhattan -- or anywhere in America -- could pose similar security risks. I'm not sure there's as much reason to fear MAGA Nation if Trump is put on trial as there was to fear Al Qaeda sympathizers a decade ago, but I couldn't really guess at the relative risk.

I think opponents of stateside 9/11 trials overestimated the possibility of violence. But I think we underestimate the risk of a Trump trial. There'll certainly be Trumpers in the streets. And there might be worse trouble than that.

So try him -- and convict him -- but be vigilant.

 

Sure hope Biden's willing to provide US Marshals for security, because the NYPD hates Mayor DeBlasio, hates Cuomo, hates James, and loooooooves them some Donald Trump.  If anything, they'll be working with the Trump cultists when Tisha James's hammer falls.