Miami mayor talks immigration, public safety and crypto during busy week in D.C.
.JPG "President Joe Biden and Columbus (Ohio) Mayor Andrew Ginther listen as Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, right, speaks in the East Room of the White House to mayors who are attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting in Washington, Friday, Jan 20, 2023.")
Immigration, cryptocurrency and public safety are some of the topics Miami Mayor Francis Suarez discussed during a flurry of media appearances this week in Washington, D.C., where he attended a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
He serves as president of the national mayors’ organization, a role that affords him a bright spotlight as he mulls a possible 2024 run for the Republican presidential nomination. He served as emcee during a weeklong event that included speeches from U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The meeting was held a few blocks from the White House, at the Capital Hilton Hotel.
During the week, Suarez made the rounds of national news outlets and announced he’d embark on a 10-city tour — including stops in New Hampshire and Iowa — to discuss public safety with local mayors and police chiefs.
Suarez on immigration
“Unchecked immigration places a tremendous burden on our cities,” Suarez said during his conference-opening speech. “This pressure is often driven by our hemispheric neighbors who have prioritized ideology over the well being of their people. We need to recognize this threat and give it the importance it deserves within our foreign-policy framework.”
During a Fox News appearance on Wednesday, Suarez said a bipartisan group of mayors was “sounding the alarm bell of how this is impacting their cities.”
“What we’ve seen, unfortunately, under the Biden administration, is that Florida has become a border state. And Miami has become a border city,” Suarez said. “And we’ve seen the impact of that on our public school systems, on our homeless system.”
Suarez and several other mayors went to the White House Friday afternoon for a private lunch and meeting with President Joe Biden, where the mayors were expected to raise some of these concerns with the president.
In an interview with the Washington Post, the mayor talked about what he planned to say to Biden.
“It’s going to be a two-part message. One, I’m sure there’ll be a request for resources,” Suarez said. “Two, I want to see a more comprehensive, articulated strategy: What are we going to do in this hemisphere to reduce pressure on immigration?”
Suarez on crypto
Suarez did not discuss cryptocurrency during the mayors’ meeting, but he was asked about it during a Friday morning appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” The mayor has remained bullish on the benefits of using cryptocurrency, even as the value of Bitcoin remains far lower then 2022’s highs as the crypto market experiences what the mayor calls a “crypto winter.”
Suarez said some of the smartest people in the investment world were duped by FTX, the crypto exchange that filed for bankruptcy in late 2022 amid allegations of misuse of customer funds. The situation led to fraud charges against its former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried.
“You know, I wish they would have been responsible with their customers’ money, and I think part of it is a failure on the part of governments to regulate them properly in a way that would put guardrails on what they could do with customers’ money,” Suarez said.
The mayor appeared defensive when the host asked him about whether those who have hyped cryptocurrency might bear some responsibility for investors’ losses.
“I think a lot of this is, with all due respect, media-driven, where you know, when something doesn’t go right, we have to find someone to blame for it, particularly when it involves just simply investing in something when something goes well,” Suarez said. “Because, you know, maybe in six months Bitcoin is at $30,000. Maybe it’s at $40,000. I mean, are you going to have me back on your show and apologize to me and say that, ‘You know, Mr. Mayor, you’re brilliant. You’re super smart, you know, to be someone who believed in technologies that have some fundamental benefits that the fiat system doesn’t provide.’ I don’t know. Are you?”
Suarez on public safety
The mayor announced a 10-week tour of U.S. cities with a former Trump administration official to talk about how to keep America’s cities safe.
He’s joining Ja’Ron Smith, the former Trump adviser who runs the Public Safety Solutions for America coalition, to advocate for different approaches to law enforcement and criminal justice.
“Crime is a local problem, and it is best prevented at the local level using bottom-up solutions,” Suarez said, in a statement. He said he plans to share Miami’s approach to law enforcement with other mayors and police officials.
The tour, sponsored by Smith’s group, will begin in Memphis in late February. Two of the cities on the list are in early Republican presidential primary states: Des Moines, Iowa, and Manchester, New Hampshire.
Suarez on a White House bid
In the Washington Post interview, Suarez shed little light on his relationship with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his potential presidential ambitions.
Suarez and other mayors openly challenged DeSantis’ approach to managing the pandemic in 2020, arguing that local mayors should have had more discretion in employing mask mandates and other protective measures to slow the virus’ spread. At the time, DeSantis ignored Suarez’s calls.
Suarez told the Post that he still has not had a real conversation with the governor since those early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I don’t think there’s anything behind that, per se. I’ve spoken to mayors across the state of Florida. He’s the same way with other mayors — with Orlando, Tampa,” he said. “I don’t know that it has anything to do with me personally.”
The mayor also said he still has no specific timetable for deciding if he is going to run for president.
“I don’t have a time frame,” he said. “I know this sounds very cliché, but I’m sort of taking one day at a time.”
This story was originally published January 20, 2023 at 4:22 PM.
