Blaz: Andy’s rip on city a classic Trump move
Mayor de Blasio likened Gov. Cuomo to former President Donald Trump on Thursday and described the governor’s depiction of the Big Apple as “teetering” as a cynical attempt to deflect attention away from the two scandals he’s now facing.
“To paint an apocalyptic picture — I mean that’s what Donald Trump would have done — you know, throw out some sharp terminologies and gaudy pictures of what’s happening that don’t resemble the reality,” de Blasio said Thursday. “Look at this city — go around the neighborhoods of this city. People are fighting back. The neighborhoods are vibrant. We’re turning the corner.”
De Blasio’s response comes a day after Cuomo emerged to take questions for the first time in more than a week and to apologize for acting “in a way that made people feel comfortable” after three women accused him of making unwanted, sexually-charged advances.
But Cuomo, who’s taking heat over both the sexual harassment allegations and his handling of COVID at nursing homes, also made sure to throw in a dig at de Blasio — saying Wednesday that the city is “teetering” and in “a very precarious situation.”
“Crime is way up, homelessness is way up,” Cuomo said. “Many people have left New York City. We have to get New York City functional again and safe again and viable again.”
De Blasio shot back Thursday, saying Cuomo’s response was “disrespectful” to city residents and an attempt to “distract attention away from his own problems.”
“The ulterior motive is he doesn’t want to talk about the nursing home scandal — the cover-up of the facts with the nursing homes. He doesn’t speak to the families who lost their loved ones. He doesn’t want to speak about the three women who have accused him of sexual harassment,” he said. “That’s what’s really going on here.”
De Blasio predicted that “more and more information” regarding Cuomo’s troubles will emerge and dismissed Cuomo’s mea culpa a day before as insufficient.
“The bottom line is we can’t move forward if there isn’t full honesty about what happened and a full acknowledgment of the suffering that has been caused, and we’re nowhere close to that at this point,” he said.
De Blasio declined to detail his own run-ins with the governor over the years Thursday, but said Cuomo had demanded in the past that he fire staffers.