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Trump Mocks Gillibrand and Cuomo in Visit to Upstate New York

President Donald Trump returned to his home state of New York on Monday intent on settling old scores with leading Democratic politicians here, mocking Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand as “just a puppet” of Sen. Chuck Schumer, and saying “it’s very sad to see what’s happening with New York” under Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

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Trump Mocks Gillibrand and Cuomo in Visit to Upstate New York
By
Shane Goldmacher
and
Tyler Pager, New York Times

President Donald Trump returned to his home state of New York on Monday intent on settling old scores with leading Democratic politicians here, mocking Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand as “just a puppet” of Sen. Chuck Schumer, and saying “it’s very sad to see what’s happening with New York” under Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Trump added that Cuomo, thought to be a potential 2020 White House candidate, had once told him he would “never run for president against” him.

“Oh, please do it,” Trump goaded Cuomo.

The president’s remarks came at a fundraiser in Utica for Rep. Claudia Tenney, one of two Republican congresswomen in New York whose districts Trump visited on Monday.

Throughout this year’s Republican primaries, Trump has trumpeted his role as a kingmaker — “5 for 5!” he wrote on Twitter after candidates who he endorsed won last week — and on Monday, he tested his influence in New York, where he said he once considered running for governor. He ran for president instead.

“That worked out,” he bragged.

The problem for the White House, and Trump, is that many House battlegrounds are in suburban districts where Trump’s polarizing presence might not help Republican incumbents. Indeed, for Cuomo and Gillibrand, who are both up for re-election in 2018, the broadsides from a president who is deeply unpopular in his home state represent little real political threat to their chances.

Officially, the event was to be a closed-door fundraiser for Tenney — “I’m here for Claudia,” Trump said, “She has been incredible in Congress.” But the White House unexpectedly opened the event to cameras less than an hour before it began, giving the president a far broader platform to air old grievances than the ballroom at the Doubletree Hotel Utica would normally provide.

Trump donated to both Cuomo and Gillibrand when he was a Democrat. “She’s very aggressive on contributions. She’s not very aggressive on getting things done,” Trump said of Gillibrand, who also is seen as a possible 2020 presidential candidate.

Tenney has closely allied herself with the White House in a district that Trump carried by more than 15 percentage points in 2016. Last month, Ivanka Trump, Trump’s daughter and a top White House adviser, also visited Tenney, holding a round-table discussion in the district. Tenney and Ivanka Trump climbed onto some heavy machinery together as photographers snapped pictures.

On the tarmac Monday, Tenney and her son, a Marine captain, were the first to greet Trump and Air Force One as he arrived in nearby Rome, New York, as the crowd of roughly 50 people rotated between shouts of “Build that wall!” “USA! USA!” and “Trump! Trump!”

As the president signed hats and shook hands with some in the crowd, Tenney stood nearby with her outstretched arm, filming it all on her cellphone.

Tenney’s district, which stretches from Binghamton to Lake Ontario in central New York, is one of the most fought-over seats in the United States, with more than $1.6 million in super PAC money already pouring into the contest, more than any other New York race.

Tenney, who is in her first term, narrowly won a three-way contest with 46.5 percent of the vote in 2016, and her re-election is seen as a tossup, as Democrats recruited a more centrist challenger, Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi. Both Brindisi — whom Trump characterized as a “total puppet of Nancy Pelosi” — and Tenney have raised nearly $2 million.

Outside the hotel, about 100 Trump supporters stood across the street from roughly 400 protesters, several of whom spoke out against the president’s policies on immigrants and refugees because of Utica’s large refugee population. The United Nations named Utica “the town that loves refugees,” as it has resettled more than 16,000 refugees over the past three decades. Utica has a population of just over 60,000.

The protesters also took issue with the cost of attending the fundraiser. Even some Republicans were perplexed that Trump — who can draw massive crowds at a rally or massive checks from deep-pocketed donors — would choose to headline a fundraiser in Utica, a city hardly known for its financial might.

Tickets to get in to Monday’s event started at $1,000. For $15,000, hosts received access to an exclusive round table and reception with Trump, plus a photo.

Contrast that to the summit of super PAC donors that Trump addressed in May in Washington, where ticket prices reached as high as $250,000.

“It’s actually one of the most reasonable and lowest priced fundraisers the president of the United States has held,” Tenney said in a radio interview last week, adding that Trump’s political team had chosen the location. She said she didn’t “know the reasoning” behind why Utica had been selected.

While Trump has remained popular among Republicans in upstate New York, his tariffs and restrictive immigration policies threaten to erode some of that support in the agriculture-heavy region. On a recent Friday, not long after assisting one of his cows give birth to twins, Mike McMahon, the owner of E-Z Acres, a dairy farm in Homer, New York, lamented the state of the upstate dairy industry, which relies on migrant labor and has suffered as the price of milk has dropped, in part because of new tariffs.

“I’m discouraged by the inaction of the Republican Party to do anything to resolve the situation he’s put us in — and that includes Claudia Tenney,” McMahon said.

He had been a lifelong Republican but is now supporting Brindisi, who took a tour of his farm last month. He recently changed his party affiliation to independent, calling Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents at the border the “last straw.”

Trump began his visit in Fort Drum, where he was greeted by a 21-gun salute and military helicopters buzzing overhead. Inside, standing in front of a military helicopter and a large crowd of troops in uniform, the president thanked the local Republican congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, for her persistence in bringing him to the base.

“She called me so many times,” Trump said of Stefanik, mispronouncing her name. “She didn’t stop, and here I am.”

Stefanik (pronounced ste-FAHN-ick), who leads the National Republican Campaign Committee’s recruitment efforts, is a favorite to defeat the Democratic challenger, Tedra Cobb.

Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had all visited Fort Drum while in the White House. (The last president to stop in Utica, Tenney has said, was Harry Truman on a 1948 whistle-stop tour.)

Stefanik’s seat, which stretches from north of Albany to the Canadian border, is seen as one of the most solidly Republican in the state, with Stefanik carrying 65 percent of the vote in 2016. She is running for her third term after becoming the youngest woman elected to Congress in 2014, a record that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, is expected to break in November.

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