Billionaire John Catsimatidis threatens to close Gristedes chain if Zohran Mamdani elected NYC mayor

[Celerity]

6. fuck that MAGAt Catsimatidis

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/nyregion/giuliani-republican-party-nyc.html

In a vitriolic speech in New York in September, Mr. Giuliani said that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s biracial son should fear “another Black” more than a police officer, and that Black Lives Matter protesters are “cop killers” who might also want to kill white people. “When you see a police officer killed, which you are watching, somebody is carrying out what Black Lives Matter asked them to do,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Or if you see a white person killed, it could be that, too.”

Mr. Giuliani made his remarks at a forum hosted by the Manhattan Republican Party, which is now run by the family of John Catsimatidis, a billionaire Republican grocery magnate who has run for mayor. He has given the majority of the party’s recent political donations; his daughter, Andrea, 30, is the party chair.

Mr. Catsimatidis has evolved from a self-described undecided voter at the 2016 Republican convention to a full-throated Trump supporter in 2020. “If you vote on personality, Trump loses. If you vote on performance, Trump wins,” Mr. Catsimatidis said.

Ms. Catsimatidis also wholly embraces Trumpism, including the president’s rhetoric about New York City, and saw Mr. Giuliani’s recent speech as a way to highlight the city’s perils in the time of Covid: the frustrated small business owners, the cuts to sanitation services, the rise in shootings.