ED KOCH

FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 2, 1990, file photo, David Dinkins delivers his first speech as mayor of New York, in New York. Dinkins, New York Citys first African-American mayor, died Monday, Nov. 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Frankie Ziths, File)NEW YORK – Few American leaders have faced the battery of urban ills that confronted David Dinkins when he became New York City's first Black mayor in 1990. De Blasio, who worked in Dinkins’ administration, named Manhattan’s Municipal Building after his mentor in October 2015. Newly freed Nelson Mandela made New York City his first stop in the U.S. in 1990.

As he watches President Trumps relentless accusations against former Vice President Joe Biden, Hank Sheinkopf, a New York political operative who has known Trump for decades, feels hes once again viewing a play hes seen many times before. The playbook he uses is one he began practicing as a New York developer and has honed for decades. His attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016, greatly exaggerated as they were, successfully deflected attention from his own scandals. Trumps response has been to amplify unfounded claims about the Biden familys dealings there and elsewhere, and to revive previously debunked claims about Clinton. Whatever Hillary Clinton did, she was the establishment, said Robert Reich, the Labor secretary under President Clinton.