“We can kick your city’s ass”

"We can kick your city's ass!" was coined by a writer on David Letterman's The Late Show and spoken by Mayor Rudy Giuliani in April 1995. The slogan has been printed on several fake newspaper headlines.


13 April 1995, New York Times, pg. B3:
But as Mr. Letterman turned the camera on Mr. Giuliani there was clear enthusiasm in the Mayor's voice as he uttered the words of the fifth choice, which were at that moment flashed live on the Jumbotron in Times Square: "We can kick your city's ass."

New York (NY) Daily News
U.S. MAYOR'S KICKING BACK AT RUDY SLOGAN
BY LAURIE C. , MERRILL JOEL , SIEGEL CORKY AND SIEMASZKO / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1995, 12:00 AM
"Oh, yeah?

"That's what mayors of other cities were saying yesterday in response to Mayor Giuliani's proposed new slogan, "We can kick your city's ass!

"The Big Apple's fearless leader said he was only kidding when he uttered those fighting words before the millions who watched "Late Show with David Letterman" on Wednesday night. In the same vein, some of Rudy's big-city counterparts kicked back.

Google Books
The Emerald City:
And Other Essays on the Architectural Imagination

By Daniel Willis
New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press
1999
Pg. 91:
New York the Big Apple (or, as its Mayor Rudy Giuliani once suggested, "the city that can kick your city's ass").

Google Books
1001 Greatest Things Ever Said About New York
By C. J. Sullivan
Guilford, CT: Lyons Press
2006
Pg. 332:
Our City can kick your city's ass. — Mayor Rudy Giuliani

Terry Richardson's Diary
November 17, 2010
NY CAN KICK YOUR CITY’S ASS