‘Goodbye, Don’t Come Visit,’ Gleeful New York Politician Tells Donald Trump, After Trump Relocates To Florida
During a CNN interview on Friday, the speaker of the New York City Council appeared to be gleeful that Donald Trump has decided to leave the city the day after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told Trump, “Good riddance,” Corey Johnson told Trump, “We don’t need you!”
On Thursday, Trump said that, after a lifetime of living in New York City, he is now changing his primary legal residence from 721 5th Avenue in Manhattan — the address of Trump Tower — to Palm Beach, Florida. The historic Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump said, will now serve as his primary address. He has owned the landmark property since 1985.
Trump’s announcement was welcomed by New York’s top political leaders. After saying, “He’s all yours, Florida,” on his Twitter account Thursday, on November 1, Cuomo said that he did not believe Trump was “ever a New Yorker anyway,” as quoted via Twitter by The Hill.
Also on Friday, in a CNN interview as reported by the news site Raw Story, Johnson said that Trump “has not been a friend to New York City.”
“New York doesn’t want him,” Johnson told CNN host Brianna Keilar. “Goodbye, don’t come visit us. We’re the greatest city in the United States. We don’t need you!”
In an apparent reference to Trump’s desire to build a border wall to prevent unauthorized immigration across the U.S. border with Mexico, Johnson added that New York is “a city of immigrants, and we are happy to see the president go.”
Cuomo also continued to hammer Trump on Friday. In an interview with MSNBC, quoted by MediaIte, the New York governor said that Trump changed his legal residence to Florida because he believes it will help him avoid handing over his income tax returns to New York prosecutors.
Calling Trump’s address change, a “desperate legal move,” Cuomo warned Trump that simply declaring himself a Floridian rather than a New Yorker would have no bearing on his tax cases in New York.
“If you defrauded the state, you defrauded it when you were a New York state resident,” Cuomo said in the MSNBC interview. “Just because you move out does not mean you are not liable for what you say in those taxes.”
Trump claimed in a Thursday tweet that he pays “millions of dollars” in taxes to New York City and to the state each year. Cuomo and Johnson both disputed that claim, saying that Trump has likely paid no taxes at all.
Florida collects no income tax, meaning that Trump will not be required to pay state taxes there. But if Trump maintains business interests in New York, he likely will be required to continue paying taxes on any earnings from those businesses, regardless of his legal state of residence.
