Profiles in scourge

Terror fight focus of debate Blaz, Mallio nix immig bid

THE DEADLY terror attack in lower Manhattan dominated the discussion in the final mayoral debate Wednesday night, with the three candidates sparring over how to prevent future bloodshed.

Mayor de Blasio, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, and former NYPD Detective Bo Dietl all offered their condolences to the victims and praise for the first responders to the atrocity.

The feds say Sayfullo Saipov ran down cyclists on a protected bike lane with a rented truck to show his devotion to ISIS.

Saipov’s mosque, in Paterson, N.J., had been surveilled under a Michael Bloomberg-era program disbanded by de Blasio, who said it violated people’s civil rights.

De Blasio, the Democratic nominee, said attacks can be pre- vented by urging people to see something and say something, and to build better relationships between police and community.

“That helps to draw out that information,” de Blasio said. “The surveillance program in the past failed because it alienated our police from the very people we needed information from, and it violated people’s rights. We can do better.”

Republican Malliotakis called for giving police officers “the tools that they need to do their job” — but stopped short of saying she’d return to the old polciy.

“It’s important that we not limit them in their ability when they get a lead. We’re not going to be targeting any particular group or any particular type of religion, however, if there is a significant lead that is credible, we’re going to give the police the resources they need to do their job,” she said.

But Dietl Dietl, an inde independent candidate with a history of saying controversial things regarding race, seemed to offer support for profiling people based on their religious backgrounds.

“As far as this profiling thing, worrying about it, well look it — just look at this terrorist? What did he look like? Did he look like the terrorist?” he asked. “If you looked in the dictionary with that beard, the way he had. This is something that we have to get past. Political correctness cannot be there all the time.”

The attack has led President Trump — for whom Dietl and Malliotakis voted — to call for the end of diversity visa lotteries in favor of using merit-based systems. Neither Malliotakis nor de Blasio expressed support for that position — though Malliotakis called for “extreme vetting,” a term often used by Trump.

“I’m not sure that my parents who were immigrants would be allowed to come in if it was only a merit-based system,” Malliotakis, the child of a Greek father and Cuban exile mother, said.

The candidates also sparred over testimony from de Blasio donor Jona Rechnitz, who in federal court has alleged he bought access and favors from the mayor in exchange for $193,000 in donations.

“I’ve said very clearly what we now about him we didn’t know then — he is a liar, he is a felon, I don’t believe anything he says,” de Blasio said, adding he had no relationship with him, but refusing to offer proof in the form of records of calls or meetings. “I’m not releasing any more information than we’ve already provided many times over to the authorities.”

Each of the other candidates sought to present themselves as the one who would clean up City Hall.

“What would I do? I’d get rid of this mayor,” Dietl said.