LMAO . . . Wait, he’s serious?
Mayor de Blasio refused Tuesday to rule out a White House bid, leaving even longtime allies scratching their heads.
One former de Blasio staffer texted one word — “Uggghhh” — when asked about it.
The mayor told reporters he has a “sense of mission” to spread his ultra-liberal agenda and “has not ruled out a run [because there’s] always room for more progressive voices.”
He’s headed to first-primary state New Hampshire Friday.
Longtime liberal activist Bertha Lewis, who boosted de Blasio’s 2013 mayoral ambitions, predicted he wouldn’t be on the campaign trail for long.
“He can go to New Hampshire. He tried to do Iowa before. Didn’t go too well,” she told The Post, pointing to the mayor’s well-publicized 2016 failure to turn himself into a liberal kingmaker by organizing a presidential forum.
Another former City Hall insider said, “For what it’s worth, this isn’t real, this is posturing. This is an attempt to be relevant.
“He still fancies himself and Chirlane as the Bill and Hillary of the new progressive wave of politics.”
Talk about a guy who just refuses to take a hint — a lot of hints, in fact. Mayor de Blasio somehow still thinks America is clamoring for him to run for president.
His own aides are lukewarm (at best) to the idea. And New Yorkers just ranked him dead last as to which state pol would make the best president, behind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’s too young to run.
Yet the mayor now warns that his steadfast promise not to run for president no longer applies. And he’s off to New Hampshire to meet Friday with officials and activists and chat with voters in the first primary state.
Just what he expects is beyond us. Every de Blasio attempt to create a national profile has blown up in his face, from the 2016 Iowa “candidate forum” that no candidates wanted to attend, to Team Hillary relegating him to the humiliating job of door-knocking.
Maybe he’s counting on Granite Staters being ignorant of his actual record? He’s meeting with a group that aims to “counter the influence of money in politics” — though he has spent much of his time in office aggressively wooing fat-cat donors who then got high-level official favors.
New Hampshire probably doesn’t see much New York news about the disasters at NYCHA, the explosion of homeless people on the streets, failing schools, coverups of a high-level City Hall sexual-harassment case and so on.
Face the facts, Mr. Mayor: Those “We want Bill” echoes you’re hearing are all in your own voice. Better to stay home and try to do the job you were elected to do.