New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is slamming his predecessor Mike Bloomberg's bid for the presidency, accusing the media billionaire of not being "honest" about his time and policies as mayor and warning Democrats about him.
"Before his millions of advertising, we need an honest conversation about what really happened," de Blasio said in an online interview last week, reports Politico, which noted the mayor has expressed his disgust in Bloomberg's campaign for the presidency through a series of national and local media appearances.
De Blasio, whose own campaign for the Democratic nomination fell apart in September, also has taken offense to Bloomberg's apology for his "stop and frisk" policing policy and his "damning" record on homelessness.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg's campaign says it wishes de Blasio would act more like his predecessor.
"Mike made it very clear when he left office that he was not going to say a negative word about his successor and he has absolutely kept to that and I think New Yorkers appreciate that," said Bloomberg adviser Howard Wolfson. "That is not the view of the current occupant of City Hall."
But de Blasio has been a fierce critic of Bloomberg for years, dating back to his days as the city's public advocate and council member, which led to his win in the city's tough Democratic primary in 2013.
De Blasio also thinks Bloomberg is getting praise he hasn't earned, and there are leaders in media outlets who don't want to alienate him out of fear he "might buy him someday," some sources said.
Others, though, see the mayor's complaints as sour grapes over his own failures.
"When he was inaugurated, he was a sore winner and now he's a sore loser," said Ken Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College who says he voted for de Blasio in 2013 and 2017. "He seems to be incapable of being gracious."