Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto pushed back Thursday evening against Trump’s rhetoric about how pulling out of the Paris climate deal would be prioritizing the needs of American cities like Pittsburgh.
The president said in the Rose Garden earlier on Thursday, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”
In an interview on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” Peduto said Trump was wrong to call out the city, mostly because it is not city of Trump supporters.
“The city of Pittsburgh voted for Hillary Clinton with nearly 80 percent of the vote,” Peduto told host Wolf Blitzer. “He may be talking about all of Western Pennsylvania, but it’s a far cry from being Pittsburgh.”
Peduto also told Blitzer that Pittsburgh is like China in that the air quality is so bad, “the street lights would stay on for 24 hours.”
The Democratic mayor also told CNN that he was planning on issuing an executive order on Friday pledging the city would maintain its goals for carbon reduction.
Directly following Trump’s speech, Peduto tweeted saying: “The United States joins Syria, Nicaragua & Russia [in] deciding not to participate with the world’s Paris agreement. It’s now up to the cities to lead.”
