I’ve had more calls on that statement that Ted made, that New York is a great place, it’s got great people, it’s got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York.

In a Fox News debate, Donald Trump attacked Sen. Ted Cruz’s critical reference to “New York values” with a passionate reference to the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. As Real Clear Politics reported his remarks:

You had two 110-story buildings come crashing down, I saw them come down, thousands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup, probably in the history of doing this, and in construction, I was down there. And I’ve never seen anything like it. And the people in New York fought, and fought, and fought, and we saw more death and even the smell of death, nobody understood it, and it was with us for months, the smell. the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York, and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.

Trump once wasn’t so enamored of the World Trade Center or its replacement, the Freedom Tower, describing them in terms that, according to the Independent Journal Review, provoked a backlash from outraged New Yorkers:

In an article from the New York Post dated September 18th, 2001, Trump said of the towers:

“To be blunt, they were not ‘great’ buildings… They only became great upon their demise last Tuesday...” But Trump’s controversial statements surrounding the World Trade Center towers and the 9/11 attacks were far from over. In 2005, victims of the 9/11 attacks lambasted the billionaire for his insensitive remarks about the proposed “Freedom Tower.” In regard to the construction of the Freedom Tower, Trump called the building inappropriate, which he suggested was unfit for that part of New York City: “The Freedom Tower should not be allowed to be built. It’s not appropriate for Lower Manhattan, it’s not appropriate for Manhattan, it’s not appropriate for the United States, it’s not appropriate for freedom.” The response to Trump’s remarks, as well as his vision for what the tribute to the twin towers should have been, were ripped by victims’ family members.

Cruz’s reference to “New York values” in fact had nothing to do with 9/11 and the heroic response of New Yorkers and Trump probably knew that. Cruz’s remarks had everything to do with the liberal politics of New York’s political elites like Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio and Trump probably knew that too.

For example, as the Washington Times noted, Democrat Cuomo, to whom Trump donated $64,000. famously said the pro-life, pro-gun conservatives have no place in New York:

“It’s more about extreme Republicans versus moderate Republicans,” he said in a radio interview Friday, National Review Online reported. “You’re seeing that play out in New York… The Republican Party candidates are running against the SAFE Act -- it was voted for by moderate Republicans who run the Senate. “Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”

That’s a little different than who Donald Trump says New Yorkers are. New Yorkers are compassionate. Caring and were certainly heroic on 9/11 but Cuomo’s “New York values” say that people who believe that life begins at conception and ends in natural death or people who believe in the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the individual right to keep and bear arms, which Ted Cruz successfully defended before the Supreme Court, are not welcome in New York.

New York’s socialist Mayor DeBlasio, whom Trump says he never supported, even though he did, seemed to embrace the views of “Black Lives Matter” and other liberal groups who claim minorities have more to fear from white cops than those decimating their neighborhoods. As the New York Post reported, cops had a reason to turn their backs to DeBlasio at the funerals of two of their brethren, Officers Wenjian Liu, Rafael Ramos, murdered by thugs as they had lunch in their police car:

“I turned my back last week on [de Blasio], and I will continue to turn my back whenever I hear him speak because he disrespected me, Officer Ramos and Officer Liu when he said he warned his son, Dante, to be wary of cops,” said a uniformed cop at the funeral. De Blasio had said after the controversial grand jury rulings in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases that he had to “train” his biracial son about the “dangers” posed by cops. Garner and Brown, both black, were killed in confrontations with white officers. One cop standing with his back to de Blasio said: “I can’t stand even looking at him. He has no friends here.”

Politics, it is said, makes curious bedfellows, in in Trump’s case his political bedfellows have been very curious indeed. As RedState reports, a new Cruz ad running in New York details things a fawning mainstream media has failed to:

Trump handed over $41,000 to Eliot Spitzer, who made it all the way to the Governor’s Mansion before his relationship with a high-priced prostitute became public. And Trump gave almost $4500 to disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner who publicly tweeted lewd pictures of himself. Trump has no problem handing out cash to some of the most liberal politicians hailing from New York. He gave $64,000 to Andrew Cuomo, helped elect and re-elect New York mayor David Dinkins, and donated $8,900 to Chuck Schumer, one of the leading Senate Democrats advocating for amnesty and to put liberal justices on the Supreme Court… He’s also given thousands of dollars to individuals with legal and ethical violations. Trump gave $56,000 to convicted felon Alan Hevesi who went to prison for a massive pay to play pension scandal. He contributed to a disgraced Queens assemblyman who stole $90,000 from a little league association. And he donated to Sheldon Silver, a former Speaker of the New York State Assembly who is facing 130 years in prison for a corruption.

These are the “New York values” and the politicians Trump supported who represent them that Ted Cruz was talking about -- a political culture of corruption and liberal politics that says prolife and gun rights advocates are to be shunned, that cops are to be feared, and criminal politicians are to be supported with political donations. To Trump, it’s “The Art Of The Deal.” To Ted Cruz and his supporters, its liberal sleeze.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.