Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone angrily denounced President Trump on Wednesday, telling reporters that the president referred to federal disaster assistance as “some sort of bailout” during his fund-raising visit to the South Fork on Saturday.
“First off, we need federal disaster assistance in order to respond to and recover from Covid-19,” said Mr. Bellone, who has repeatedly called for such assistance. “As a county government, we are on the front lines . . . we need to fund our police officers, our public health workers, our schools so that we can safely reopen.”
Turning a recent catch phrase back at the president, Mr. Bellone said that “If you don’t support disaster assistance from the federal government, in essence you are supporting a policy that says it is okay to defund local government, defund the police, defund public health workers. I couldn’t disagree more. Support for federal disaster assistance is not a partisan issue, and it shouldn’t be.”
Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday that Sen. Charles Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “want to make a deal. . . . [more]
