Blas e-nails staff for speech defect

If you’ve ever fallen asleep during one of Mayor de Blasio’s speeches you’re not alone: He can barely stay awake himself.

Newly revealed City Hall e-mails show that de Blasio has fumed about the poor quality of his public oratory and placed the blame not on his own skills but on his “dull” speechwriters.

In particular, de Blasio raged at underlings after a speech about his Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City that apparently had his audience paying more attention to their watches than to him.

“I insist that you all improve the messaging around the Fund. My proposed remarks tonight are dull and uninspiring — as are my remarks too often when the topic is the Mayor’s Fund,” de Blasio wrote to three Fund officials.

The Mayor’s Fund is chaired by Hizzoner’s wife, Chirlane McCray, and pays for de Blasio’s pet projects.

“My job — in case this wasn’t clear — is to lead and inspire, particularly when we’re trying to build support,” the mayor continued in the e-mail from March 2015 recently obtained by The Post. “Tonight’s remarks are a disconnected laundry list. I expect much better for the Fund board mtg.”

The finger-pointing came at a time when the administration was trying to hire new scribes to bolster the mayor’s public addresses.

“I’m really suffering because of underwhelming texts to work from,” the mayor complained to three top aides on March 10, 2015.

In the e-mail with the subject line “Speechwriting,” de Blasio then added, “Any luck finding new candidates?”

De Blasio has often blamed his administration’s missteps on poor communication rather than on poor execution or decision-mak- ing, and his speechwriting team saw significant turnover during his first term.

But Curt Smith, a former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush and currently a senior lecturer at the University of Rochester, said the mayor should look in the mirror before casting blame elsewhere.

“To me, the mayor is an unusual speaker in the worst sense of that term — at once overly aloof and harshly emotional,” Smith told The Post.

“Good speechwriting doubtless complements a good public speaker. It does not substitute for such a speaker,” he added. “I never heard Ronald Reagan publicly bemoan the quality of a speech. Nor, for that matter . . . President George H.W. Bush.”

Last December, the mayor hired as his chief speechwriter Jonathan Fromowitz — a former strategist at de Blasio’s favored media and messaging firm, AKPD.

A City Hall spokesman had no immediate comment.