New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is blaming President Trump’s “rhetoric” for the racially-motivated murder of a black man in the Big Apple earlier this week.
In an interview with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer on Friday, de Blasio called the killing of 66-year-old Timothy Caughman by 28-year-old white supremacist James Jackson an “act of domestic, racist terrorism.”
Shortly before midnight on Monday, Jackson fatally stabbed Caughman from behind with a sword. Jackson, who traveled from Baltimore to commit the murder, said he was planning to kill more black men in Times Square.
De Blasio, a Democrat, attributed some of the blame to Trump.
“The challenge here is that a dynamic of hatred has been growing in this country over the last year or more, particularly come out in the open, is clearly related to the rhetoric of Donald Trump and even other candidates during the presidential election that have unleashed forces of hate all over the country,” he said.
“An atmosphere of hate has been created,” he added.
Sarah Sanders Huckabee, a White House spokeswoman, responded to de Blasio’s remarks in a statement to Politico.
“The President has repeatedly condemned any racially or religiously motivated act of violence and to suggest anything different is dishonest and misleading,” she said.
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