SCREAMFEST
THE FIRST debate for mayor in the general election devolved into a steel cage match Tuesday — with incessant shouting from the crowd, mudslinging, accusations of lying and a moderator who had to play referee and toss one heckler out of the venue.
Mayor de Blasio faced off against his Republican challenger Nicole Malliotakis and independent candidate Bo Dietl — who despite vowing to shelve his “Wild Man Bo” persona challenged the mayor to spend two nights at Rikers Island with him, called him Big Bird and doubled down on comments about an African-American judge who he believes looks like the mayor’s wife.
“All I said was the judge was very familiar-looking as the wife of the mayor,” Dietl said at the debate at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side, going on to say they had similar eyes and smiles. As de Blasio spoke up, Dietl interjected: “Take it easy there, de Blasio.”
“If you say a judge is going to make a decision based on her gender or the color of her skin, you’re no better than Donald Trump,” de Blasio said.
But the acrimonious backand-forths weren’t limited to interactions with Dietl. De Blasio also faced off repeatedly with his major-party opponent, Malliotakis, a Staten Island assemblywoman he has sought to tie to President Trump, for whom she voted.
Malliotakis wanted to talk about local issues — lambasting the mayor for his connections to the real estate world that led to criminal probes but ultimately no charges. “The No. 1 thing we can do is to take pay to play out of City Hall, and we do that by electing someone who has a moral compass,” she said, going on to urge a ban on lobbyists bundling for political candidates.
Dietl, too, sought to seize on the probes — at one point trying to ask a question about the mayor’s legal fees, referring to a “$2 million criminal enterprise.”
De Blasio largely ignored Dietl, but he zeroed in on Malliotakis several times — dismissing her positions as “right wing” and asking her if she had truly believed that Trump would be a better choice for New York City than Hillary Clinton and bristling when she didn’t quite answer.
“It’s the same answer you gave about Gov. Cuomo,” Malliotakis replied. “When I disagree with the President, when I disagree with anybody in my party or in the other party for that matter, I’m going to say so.”
When panelist Grace Rauh of NY1 followed up later with a Trump question, Malliotakis took a page out of the President’s playbook and blamed the media.
“I got to be honest with you, Grace, I feel that you’re carrying the mayor’s water right now,” Malliotakis said to the reporter, who has filed a lawsuit to get access to the mayor’s emails and has dogged him outside his gym.
At one point, the rowdy crowd included a man screaming that the mayor would go to jail. Moderator Errol Louis wound up having him removed from the audience.
“Get that person out of here please. Goodbye, goodbye,” Louis said. “Good night, Sir.”
At one point, Malliotakis accused de Blasio of trying to build five new jails in the city.
“I have never called for five new jails, I think you know that,” he said.
“Four!” Dietl yelled. “Thank you,” the mayor smiled.