Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill. | Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office De Blasio reassures New Yorkers about stop-and-frisk under Trump

Mayor Bill de Blasio had a specific message to deliver this morning on Hot 97, the hip-hop radio station that has become one of his go-to outlets.

De Blasio sought to reassure New Yorkers that President-elect Donald Trump — and possibly Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor who is rumored to be in the running for attorney general — cannot force the city's police department into increasing the use of stop-and-frisk.


“What people need to hear is, [the] federal government cannot tell a local police force to use a policy like that if we believe it’s wrong for our city and our people,” de Blasio said.

The interview was intended to help calm New Yorkers’ fears about the election of Trump, who suggested during the campaign that he would look to increase the police practice across the country.

“I know you had a list of items you want to address,” host Ebro Darden said to de Blasio, halfway through a wide-ranging interview, adding, "We know what Giuliani did to this city."

During a presidential debate in September, Trump vowed he would "do stop-and-frisk" across the nation in an effort to end urban crime.

Those comments were enough to draw an unprecedented impromptu appearance from de Blasio in the reporters’ room inside City Hall, where he denounced Trump’s remarks.

He echoed the point again on Monday, following Trump's surprise victory last week.

“The constitutional system, it’s got its strengths and weaknesses, but it really gives a lot of power to states and localities," he said. "And the federal government doesn’t get to tell us how to police our streets. They can threaten to take away money, but they cannot tell us how to police our streets. We’re not going back to a broken policy of stop and frisk. That will never happen on my watch."

De Blasio said he felt “shock,” when Trump was elected on Tuesday night, but has now become resolved to fight back against any discriminatory policies put forward by the president-elect.

“Look, we have no way to tell what he’s going to do,” de Blasio told the radio hosts, when asked if he believed Trump would fulfill his pledge to create more jobs in America.

“We have an obligation, not least those in government, if he’s going to do things that will give people a better economic life, we have to try to find some common ground,” said de Blasio, who won the mayoralty in 2013 on a message of combating income inequality. “But it remains to be seen whether any of that’s going to happen. And he’s quite definite about the fact that he’s going to give tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations.”

De Blasio said the election was "first and foremost about economics."

"All of us who want to resist the intolerance and the divisiveness also have to understand, we have to talk to people around this country who are hurting economically, of all backgrounds of all races, and we have to show them a better way forward in terms of economic fairness,” de Blasio said.

The mayor, who sought to impose a new income tax on New York’s highest-earners when he first came into office in 2014, in order to fund a universal pre-kindergarten program, but was thwarted in part by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who opposed the plan. De Blasio said he understood why voters of all races and backgrounds would be angry, and said it was up to Democrats and progressives to offer a clear difference from the leadership that had led to the global economic crisis in 2008, and had failed to hold financial industry officials accountable afterwards.

“I think it begins with, from my point of view as a Democrat, to have an unquestionably sharp, clear message, about challenging the one percent, about creating an economy based on work not wealth,” de Blasio said.

“Doing the things that will make the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. These kinds of things are going to move people and appeal to people across the racial spectrum. And you’re right, it was unifying people because working people and middle class people feel cheated. And they have every right to feel cheated,” he said.

De Blasio said "there was no real reform after the recession and the crash on Wall Street. There was no real effort to reverse the gains of the one percent. So people feel cheated. And if Democrats and progressives don't give them a crystal clear understanding of how we’re going to change that, of course they’re going to feel dissatisfied and disconnected.”