Greater than every week into the continued federal authorities shutdown, a broad coalition of elected officers and advocates banded collectively to rally in opposition to the Trump administration with the newly launched “Arms Off” marketing campaign.
This comes after President Donald Trump has made repeated threats to ship troops to New York Metropolis and use American cities as “coaching grounds” for the navy, and the latest indictment of New York State Lawyer Common (AG) Letitia James.
The group consists of civil rights organizations just like the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), Make the Street NY, NAACP, Widespread Trigger, and 1199 SEIU. Elected leaders like Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, and Comptroller Brad Lander are additionally supporting the marketing campaign.
“The reality is [Trump] is coming again, making an attempt to carry New York Metropolis and different cities by gunpoint, saying we should comply with his evil and his bigotry. Mr. Donald Trump, you may kiss our New York Metropolis Apple backsides,” stated Williams at a Arms Off press convention on October 9 at Metropolis Corridor Park. “We won’t succumb even to your gunpoint.”
“We all know what that is. This isn’t about public security,” stated NAACP New York State President L. Pleasure Williams. “We are saying fingers off our cash, fingers off New York, and we are going to proceed to struggle, to shine the sunshine on this tyranny, to stay as much as the expectation of our ancestors — that we are going to resist and struggle each try and deliver down the individuals and strip them of their liberty [or] their sources. That is our state, that is our metropolis, that is our nation, and we are saying Arms Off New York.”
James was hit with an indictment, primarily based on supposed mortgage fraud, late within the night of October 9. One other goal of Trump’s, former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey, was criminally charged with mendacity to Congress in September 2025.
In response, the Arms Off coalition held one other rally in Foley Sq. in Manhattan close to the New York County Courthouse on October 10. They have been joined by a bunch of elected officers, particularly Black ladies, who railed in opposition to James’s indictment. Quite a few leaders confirmed up, together with Speaker Adams, Congressmember Nydia Velasquez, civil rights chief Maya Wiley, and Mamdani, amongst others.
“That is an assault on our metropolis, and every one in every of us represents totally different components of that very same metropolis, and we communicate with one voice immediately. We communicate with a voice that acknowledges that we’re standing in entrance of the identical courthouse the place Lawyer Common Tish James did her job, upholding the legislation and holding Donald Trump accountable,” stated Mamdani in an announcement.
“I’m operating in opposition to a disgraced former governor who has chosen to problem an announcement inside which he can not even say the identify Tish James, nor the identify Donald Trump,” Mamdani’s assertion continued. “And we all know why: as a result of his slender path to Metropolis Corridor is paved by the very billionaires who put Donald Trump again within the White Home. He’s unwilling to face up in a second of disaster, unwilling to talk up for the very New Yorkers which have been standing on the entrance strains.”
