New York City Mayor Tells Protesters To 'Fight Back' Against Trump: Bill de Blasio Calls For Voters To 'Take Away His Power'

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, urged Americans Monday to continue protesting the election of Donald Trump, citing the president-elect's recent comments about reversing the Supreme Court verdict in Roe v. Wade on abortion and the appointment of Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist.

In the wake of nationwide protests against the results of the 2016 presidential election, de Blasio insisted that those voicing their opposition to the president-elect were righteous in doing so. Trump has said he would immediately deport 3 million undocumented immigrants, limit abortion rights and stop Muslims from entering the country. Most recently, Trump named Banner, the former chairman of the right-wing news site Breitbart News, to his presidential cabinet.

“An organization that's been closely linked to white supremacists is going to have a representative in the White House,” De Blasio said Monday in an interview with local radio station Hot 97. “We have to recognize that all over this country, the more disruption that’s caused peacefully ... the more it will change the trajectory of things.”

De Blasio, who backed Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, said immediately after the election he hoped to cope with a Trump presidency by implementing lessons of inclusion he learned growing up in New York. More recently, the mayor has vowed to act against any federal government plans to deport undocumented immigrants in New York City, according to the New York Daily News. The mayor also said he would not place a larger emphasis on stop and frisk police tactics that allow police to stop and question pedestrians on reasonable suspicion.

Trump has said stop and frisk policies under former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani did a “great job” of “straightening” out the city. Under the controversial law enforcement practice, up to 90 percent of people who were stopped by police were found not to have done anything wrong, the Washington Post reported. More than half of those detained and searched were black, and nearly a third were Latino, according to New York Civil Liberties Union data between 2002 and 2016.

“We need to hold Trump accountable for anything he does that encourages hate and division ... The more extreme he is, the more people fight back, the more it takes away his power,” de Blasio said.