EXCERPT:
DE BLASIO: “In my eight years as mayor of New York City, and I had tremendous protection with NYPD, but I always knew they could only do so much. And I think when you think of all the legislators out there, all the members of Congress, the fact is, they’re not protected enough. Let’s be honest. That said, law enforcement’s ability to identify threats and proactively stop them is pretty extraordinary. There’s so many examples of terrorism and other types of activities that never happened because of the intelligence gathering of law enforcement. So I think the truth is, people in public service have a right to feel vulnerable right now and need to take precautions. I think all of us who have been or are in public service have to keep doing our work and not be intimidated, because I think this is exactly what Donald Trump and some of the people around him want, is an atmosphere where people shirk and shy away from their service. We certainly saw that with the election workers who felt under threat in 2020 and 2024, but, thank God, kept at their post and kept doing their work. So the true answer to your question is, no, people are not safe. Law enforcement can do a lot to help, and we need, in fact, even more help when there are those threats. But even with that reality, we have to keep doing our work. We can’t let an atmosphere that’s trying to destroy democracy and undermine people’s willingness to go out and serve the public, we can’t let that rule the day.”