DON BLASIO
‘Hate media’ e-mails expose Trumpian mayor
From saying the medi a can’t be trusted to putting together an enemies list, Mayor de Blasio sounds exactly like t he president in e- mails t hat were released yesterday, thanks to a lawsuit by The Post.
One is a dyed-in-the-wool progressive who runs his own sanctuary city. The other is an America First protectionist.
But it turns out Mayor de Blasio and President Trump share a common enemy — the news media.
Thousands of e-mails City Hall released Thursday under court order show Hizzoner sounding positively Trumpian as he attacks a report noting how he hit his gym in Park Slope instead of heading to the scene of a standoff between cops and a gunman who shot a firefighter on Staten Island.
“First of all, the news media is pitiful and it’s sad for our city and nation,” de Blasio fumed to aides on Aug. 14, 2015.
The e-mails also show de Blasio shares Trump’s penchant for compiling lists of enemies, including nemesis Gov. Cuomo and the critics who attacked him over his handling of that Staten Island standoff.
“I need a scorecard tmrw re: who was a friend and who was cheap,” the mayor wrote later that same day.
And predictably, the e-mails reveal de Blasio wishing ill on his least-favorite news outlet — The Post — as he speculated about the potential impact of the rival Daily News cutting back on its print editions and shifting operations online.
“And that would be good for us, right? Or would that make the Post more dominant?” de Blasio wrote communications aides and First Lady Chirlane McCray May 23, 2015.
“Or, conversely, would it hasten the demise of the Post — prob just wishful thinking,” he mused.
The New York Times, too, earned his wrath by refusing to publish “the only 2 op-eds I’ve offered in 16 months.”
In an April 22, 2015, e-mail, de Blasio called the paper’s refusal “totally f- -ked up,” adding, “It’s not cool that they won’t allow the mayor of their city to ever have a chance to speak in his own voice.”
The 4,200-plus pages of e-mails were made public following three years of efforts by The Post and NY1 to see them.
De Blasio had claimed the e-mails weren’t subject to the state Freedom of Information Law on grounds that political consultants from the BerlinRosen publicrelations firm who took part in the correspondence were “agents of the city.”
But a state appeals court ruled against him this month, and mayoral press secretary Eric Phillips said on Thursday morning that “we have chosen to forgo our right to seek a higher appellate court review.”
Under a recent change in state law, taxpayers will have to reimburse The Post and NY1 for their legal bills, in addition to funding the mayor’s failed court fight.
The e-mails show de Blasio and his aides obsessively plotting to craft his image in the media, including by courting Newsday reporter Emily Ngo, whom the mayor viewed as providing favorable coverage.
“Ok, well at least ONE reporter understands what I’m talking about! :)” de Blasio wrote on Dec. 30, 2015, to aides, including then-press secretary Karen Hinton.
“This is a message (how national progressive change helps nyc) I will cite a lot in 2016. And karen, make sure we give em- ily a few exclusives or one-on-ones in the coming months. She has always tried to present our side of the story. Thanks”
Weeks earlier, de Blasio swore off media profiles after writer Molly Ball described him in The Atlantic magazine as “an ungainly 6 foot 5, with the hooded eyes and dour countenance of Sam the Eagle, the Muppets’ harrumphing, censorious patriot.”
“And we gave her a s- -tload of time! Really shocking how bad and unfair it is,” de Blasio raged on Nov. 16, 2015. “I have no use for these people. Let’s just do the work and go right around the so-called referees.”
De Blasio also teed off on a Times reporter he claimed provided “no balance whatsoever” in a report on his Renewal program to turn around failing schools.
“We need to figure out a new paradigm with the Times....Either starve them or reason with them or something else — but this is ridiculous,” he wrote on Sept. 17, 2015.
The e-mails reveal how, after less than a month in office, de Blasio’s staff schemed to keep the media at bay by sneaking him into a Real Estate Board of New York event.
“He has private entrance and will skip reporters on the way in, and REBNY has said they’re going to limit access to the VIP reception,” then-communications deputy Marti Adams wrote on Jan. 16, 2014.
An Aug. 5, 2015, exchange shows staffers cooking up a way to humanize de Blasio by sharing his top dining spots with the restaurant-guide app and site The Infatuation.
“All part of our quest to make Mayor ‘real’ in the digital realm,” aide Rob Bennett wrote.
Later that month, one of de Blasio’s key advisers, John Del Cecato, spitballed ideas to boost de Blasio’s image.
“Tweet photos of MBDB [Mayor Bill de Blasio] on subway, working late at night?” he wrote on Aug. 24, 2015.
“Have MBDB personally tweet late at night (needs to be thought through - but could demonstrate how late our guy works).”
Del Cecato, a partner at the consulting firm AKPD, also floated the idea of cutting off media access to the mayor altogether.
Fuming at union leaders who criticized his handling of the Staten Island standoff, the mayor wrote, “let’s deal with these bastards.”
Patrick Lynch, head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, hit back Thursday.
“If speaking up when the mayor falls down on the job . . . makes us ‘bastards,’ we’ll gladly accept that spot on the mayor’s score card,” he said in a statement.
A de Blasio spokeswoman denied the mayor was referring to Lynch or Ed Mullins, the head of the sergeants union.
Boy, oh boy does Mayor de Blasio hate the press. That’s the most striking takeaway from the 4,200 pages of e-mails the mayor finally released Thursday, three years after The Post’s Yoav Gonen and NY1’s Grace Rauh requested them under the state Freedom of Information Law.
Turns out de Blasio isn’t just set off by The Post, which he often rails against publicly for exposing news about him he’d rather keep hidden. No, Hizzoner blows his stack at media from all over the political map — from CBS New York to The New York Times to The Atlantic.
And his language gets salty: “Totally f - - ked up,” for example, is what he called a decision by The New York Times not to run two op-ed columns he sent in. And after The Atlantic ran a “horrible” profile of him, he whined about having given the author “a s - - tload of time.” It’s “shocking how bad and unfair” the piece was, he wrote. “I have no use for these people.”
Heck, even when the Times praised him for his calm approach at a tough press conference, the thin-skinned mayor fumed that the article was “idiotic.” He also wished for The Post’s “demise.” All in all, he huffed, “The news media is pitiful and it’s sad for our city and nation.” Facing such hostility, “We can make a conscience [ sic] decision to surrender,” he told aides, “or we can govern.”
At one point, he even touted an idea for his folks to “create our own click-bait” to fight back.
De Blasio’s three-year stall before coughing up the e-mails was itself a bid to keep the public blind to his true persona. His pretext for keeping them secret (the outside consultants he conversed with were “agents of the city,” which exempted the e-mails from FOIL) had to be slapped down by two separate courts.
But what’s most remarkable about the whole thing is the thought that plainly never occurred to him:
The problem, Mr. Mayor, may not be with the press — but with you.