Pols & pals
Blaz, Cuomo make nice at rally
It only took five days and a landslide primary victory, but Mayor de Blasio finally threw his support behind Gov. Cuomo Tuesday — even if he never quite used the word “endorse.”
Hizzoner’s come-to-Cuomo moment was the clearest example of the kumbaya spirit on display at what Cuomo’s campaign dubbed a Democratic “move forward rally” Tuesday — and came after de Blasio, who has feuded with Cuomo over everything from the MTA to a lost deer in Harlem, declined to endorse anyone in the gubernatorial primary.
“This may surprise you, from time to time, we have disagreed. I know it seems unlikely,” de Blasio cracked. “When you’ve known someone 25 years, you can have some real differences, but you can also understand there is a greater good and there is a shared sense of mission.”
While the two almost never attend one another’s events, de Blasio insisted he speaks to the governor frequently. Even if they sometimes disagree, he believes in “unity” as the way to take on a shared enemy in President Trump.
“It doesn’t mean we can’t still have righteous discussions and disagreements and defend the postilions we believe in. But there is a time for unity and that time is how,” de Blasio said.
Still, the mayor apparently couldn’t quite bring himself to use the e-word when it came to Cuomo, though he did lavish his explicit endorsement on Public Advocate Letitia James in her run for attorney general, after also sitting out her primary.
“I can tell you one thing, she will be a fierce, strong attorney general and we need her in that office and I am proud to endorse her,” de Blasio said of James.
Cuomo, meanwhile, offered up some kind words for de Blasio, with whom he served in the Clinton administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“We have my colleague for 30 years, the great mayor of the City of New York, I knew Bill de Blasio since he was this tall,” he joked.