New York City mayor Bill De Blasio’s urgent plea to the White House on Sunday’s Meet The Press was essentially a flip on an iconic tabloid headline: City to Trump: Let Us Live.

In a calm yet blunt manner, De Blasio told NBC’s Chuck Todd that the coronavirus fallout is only going to get worse in the coming months, and New York will remain the hardest hit city in the country. (Currently, one-third of all Covid-19 cases are in the region.) He made a direct appeal to Donald Trump to mobilize the military and invoke the Defense Production Act “to its fullest” to get much-needed medical equipment, like ventilators, to hospitals on the front lines. “If the president does not act,” de Blasio warned, “people will die who could have lived otherwise.”

Despite Trump’s relatively measured performance at Saturday’s coronavirus news conference, at least compared to some unhinged outbursts in recent days, the president has yet to compel companies to make supplies that hospitals are begging for around the country.

De Blasio, noted, specifically how the Queens-born president isn’t showing any allegiance to his hometown in a moment of crisis. “The President of the United States is from New York City, and he will not lift a finger to help hometown,” he said. “I don’t get it.”

In a sober opening statement, the Meet The Press host compared the coronavirus pandemic to Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination, and 9/11. Eerie images from New York City, Chicago and Santa Monica brought home the totality of the social change, as Todd wondered, grimly, if American citizens are ready to “temporarily sacrifice enough of the freedoms we take for granted” to weather this storm.

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