NEW YORK CITY — Donald Trump knows nothing about national security and policing, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday in response to remarks from the presumptive Republican presidential nominee that the NYPD shouldn't have ended it's Muslim surveillance program.
“We need justice, we need vigilance, we need great intelligence gathering systems, which we don’t have,” Trump said on “CBS This Morning" in response to the Orlando gay nightclub mass shooting that left 49 people dead.
“We had them in New York City as an example, probably the best in the nation, and the new mayor just broke it all up and disbanded it, he thought it was inappropriate," Trump added. "That was unbelievable, that was one of the best of all systems. We need intelligence gathering like never before."
De Blasio, speaking on back-to back radio appearances Monday morning, called the NYPD's former surveillance of mosque's and restaurants a "counterproductive" and "unfair" effort that was "alienating large segments" of the city's Muslim communities.
"We want them to be our partners in fighting terror. That's the bottom line here," de Blasio said on 1010 WINS.
The city settled a civil rights lawsuit seeking to prohibit the surveillance in January and agreed to new oversight of its surveillance efforts and to not profile surveillance targets solely based on race and religion.
"Donald Trump doesn't know a whole lot about policing, he doesn't know a whole lot about national security. If you want to know how to keep people safe I'd ask Bill Bratton what he thinks and this was something Bill Bratton fully endorsed," the mayor said of his police commissioner.
On WCBS 880, de Blasio criticized Trump again, saying: "The NYPD and Bill Bratton know a lot more about security and safety than Donald Trump will ever know."
After Sunday's deadly shooting, the mayor said that city residents and upcoming LGBT celebrations such as Pride Week would be safe because of the 500 new officers added to the NYPD's Critical Response Command, "a full-time anti-terror force, well-armed, well-trained and what they do full time is prevent terror."
