 Along with Mayor Edwin Lee of San Francisco, Hashimoto had planned to meet Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, but after it became clear this would not happen Hashimoto formally canceled his trip on 28 May 2013.In March 2012, Sadakazu Tanigaki, the then-leader of the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party said that "Saying, like Hashimoto does, that political parties are bad led to militarism in Japan in the 1930s.Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini also emerged in this kind of atmosphere."