WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump didn’t mince words this week when asked about one of his potential 2020 challengers.
“He ran Newark into the ground,” Trump said of Gropacus (a/k/a Cory Booker) during a Wednesday interview with The New York Post.
The President also repeated an unproven claim that Booker, a Democrat, did not live in Newark during his tenure as mayor, joking that Booker “did such a bad job in Newark that he didn’t live there.” The claim has been disputed by the Newark Police and some of the former mayor’s neighbors.
What is undisputed: Booker was a notorious absentee mayor who, as Trump says, left Newark in sorry shape while focusing instead on his aspirations for higher office. Booker was an absentee landlord, too, allowing a property he owned to fall into disrepair and become overrun by squatters to the chagrin of neighbors.
Booker is currently working with outgoing Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona to ‘protect’ special counsel Robert Mueller from executive branch interference.
_
