New York mayor stumps for Gillum
De Blasio on DeSantis: He’s a ‘wholly owned subsidiary’ of the president.
WEST PALM BEACH — New York Mayor Bill de Blasio hailed Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum on Saturday as a key national figure in efforts to move the Democratic Party to the left and dismissed Gillum’s Republican rival, Ron DeSantis, as a “wholly owned subsidiary” of President
Donald Trump.
With Tallahassee
Mayor Gillum staying in his city to tend to post-Hurricane Michael duties, de Blasio made a swing through South
Florida to visit Gillum supporters in West Palm
Beach and west of Delray Beach before scheduled stops in Broward and Miami-Dade counties later in the day.
New York’s previous mayor, potential 2020 presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, stumped with Gillum in South Florida earlier this month.
De Blasio, re-elected to a second four-year term
in 2017, has been mentioned in some 2020 Democratic presidential chatter since he visited Iowa last December and formed a federal PAC in July.
“I’ve got three years and three more months as mayor. I’m going to do that with all the energy I’ve got. But I also believe in getting out there and helping fellow Democrats and fellow progressives ... trying to help peo- ple in key states who I think will be important change agents,” de Blasio said in a brief interview with The Palm Beach Post.
At a Democratic campaign office in West Palm Beach, de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, appeared before about 50 people with U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County Commissioner Mack Bernard, West Palm Beach Mayor Jeri Muoio and Greenacres Mayor Joel Flores. De Blasio urged Gillum sup- porters to have one-on-one conversations with other voters about the election. “We are blessed to have a candidate who makes us proud, a candidate who is an example of everything we want to see ... He has a vision for a fair and just society. People will under- stand that if they hear that from your heart,” de Bla- sio said. As for DeSantis, who won the GOP primary with strong backing from Trump, de Blasio said: “There’s never been anything that Donald Trump did or said, no matter how outrageous or divisive or mistaken, that Ron DeSantis has not 100 per- cent endorsed. It’s 100 per- cent clear. He is (a) wholly owned subsidiary.” De Blasio made a similar appeal in West Delray, where about 60 people filled a room where he spoke and others listened from nearby areas in a Democratic office near the Kings Point retirement community. U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, accompanied de Blasio at the West Delray stop. De Blasio told The Palm Beach Post that Gil l um embodies the leftward direction he’d like to see the Democratic Party go. “I think Andrew Gillum’s an amazing example of a real progressive who’s reaching everyday people with his message. I think that’s going to allow him to win in a way that previous candidates couldn’t. I also think that’s going to help to make our party more progressive, and that’s something I value greatly. I think that’s the pathway to a better Democratic Party in the future and a party that can win in the future. That’s why I’m here,” de Blasio said. De Blasio defended Gil- lum’s proposal to hike cor- porate income taxes by 40 percent to raise an estimated $1 billion for public schools. None of Gil- lum’s four Democratic primary rivals embraced a tax increase and DeSantis and Republicans have slammed the idea as harmful to the state’s economy.
“People in this country are sick of giveaways to the wealthy,” de Blasio said. “So for Gillum to say ‘Hey, corporations are doing really well, they’re doing better than ever, let’s ask them to do more to help the com- munity, particularly when it comes to education’ — I think there’s a lot of people that agree with that across the spectrum and I think he’s tapped into something. The notion that a state is conservative or progressive — to some extent that misses the human factor. Everyday people are upset with the status quo. They see a lot of unfairness in their lives.”