Pittsburgh Democratic mayoral candidate has a Twitter feed of Trump reward | Information | Pittsburgh

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Photo: Screencap from Tony Moreno promotional video for Pittsburgh Mayor

Tony Moreno

Tony Moreno, a retired policeman from Brighton Heights on the North Side, was the first candidate to announce that he would face Bill Peduto in the 2021 Pittsburgh Mayors’ race. In September 2019, Moreno said he was running as a Democrat for the city’s top position and told TribLive, “I don’t have a social agenda. I don’t have a national agenda. I have a Pittsburgh agenda. ”

But just months earlier, Moreno’s Twitter feed (@realsteelmayor) was full of open praise for Donald Trump and open contempt for Democrats. From October 2018 to July 2019, Moreno tweeted “MAGA” five times. In several tweets, he repeatedly referred to Trump as the “great” President Donald Trump.

In a July 2019 tweet, in a quote tweet from Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Moreno wrote that Trump spoke for him.

“The great President Donald J Trump also has a responsibility to protect this country. They want to make it socialist and hate America. They try to indict him, falsely accuse him, and turn against American values. I would have said that. He speaks for me. ”

Screenshot from Twitter

Moreno is currently seeking support from the Allegheny County’s Democratic Committee, as is the mayoral candidate and MP Ed Gainey (D-Lincoln-Lemington). Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto is skipping approval this year.

The ACDC got into some controversy last year when the committee endorsed MP’s candidate Heather Kass, who had also shown support for Trump in previous positions. Following Kass approval, Pittsburgh City Paper announced that there were also several Democratic Committee members in the county who also praised Trump on social media. The ACDC’s statutes prohibit committee members from advocating for non-democrats.

A February 2019 tweet from Moreno included the phrase “All Day Democrat KKK” in obvious reference to a black-face scandal involving the Democratic Governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam.

“Why are there never any old kkk black face photos of the President of the Grand President Donald J Trump or any other prominent GOP member? Democrat KKK all day. ”

Screenshot from Twitter

In an interview with TribLive in January 2021, Moreno said he “didn’t like politics” and was motivated to run partly because he didn’t see the city “going the right way”.

In an interview with City Paper, Moreno says that these tweets praising Trump give no indication of his current support or policies that he advocates. He says he is a lifelong Democrat, and he says his past tweets were a “backlash” to what he saw inside the Democratic Party.

“I realized that a keyboard warrior wouldn’t bring the results I wanted,” says Moreno, who claimed he had shifted his focus more to local issues and his mayoral run after announcing it in fall 2019.

After 2019, Moreno stopped openly praising Trump but still shared tweets from several right-wing accounts like actor James Woods and old-right personality Andy Ngo. He also blamed Peduto for the property damage that occurred during a protest on May 30, 2020, and criticized the coronavirus models of Dr. Anthony Fauci in July 2020 after more than 135,000 Americans died from the disease.

When asked, Moreno says that he does not support Trump and that his past social media history “is what is” but does not represent his current political support.

“If you want to say something bombastic, make it as bombastic as possible,” says Moreno. “I don’t have a MAGA hat and I don’t wave a MAGA flag, it was just something I tweeted.”

Moreno’s 2018-2019 feed includes links to articles from far-right sources like Breitbart and the Western Journal, the founder of which reportedly questioned whether President Obama was a Muslim. Moreno also shoots progressives, liberals and “anti-Trump Republicans” in tweets. He also appeared to support Trump’s proposal for a border wall and tweeted in December 2018: “Build this wall.”

Screenshot from Twitter

When asked about the apparent support for Trump’s border wall along the US-Mexico border, he said the wall was a different issue. Originally from Whittier, Orange County, California, Moreno says immigration is important and “it needs to be addressed on a large scale.”

“I’m from Southern California and I’ve seen the effects of an open border. Mass groups of people who haven’t been controlled,” Moreno says. (The California-Mexico border is not open and is closely guarded with fences, walls, and checkpoints tens of kilometers from the border. California, home to the country’s most dynamic economy, has a large immigrant-native population 11 million, of which about 23% are undocumented.)

Moreno tweeted: “Dear Liberals! The great President Donald J Trump even wishes you a happy Independence Day. Our flag, our country! MAGA” on July 3rd, 2019.

He called former FBI director Robert Mueller a racist and an overt white nationalist. He also called US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) a “racist communist progressive fool”.

Screenshot from Twitter

Moreno is a retired Pittsburgh police officer who uses police rhetoric. The Pittsburgh Police Union (FOP Lodge # 1) named Donald Trump President in 2016.

In the end, Moreno hopes his social media activities won’t change the support some have given him.

“I hope it doesn’t change how people think about the support they have given me,” says Moreno. “It is not the way of what we want to achieve. Let’s take care of Pittsburgh and our citizens.”