Giuliani: 'Breaks My Heart' To See de Blasio Ruining 'Best-Run City in America'
It’s not a surprise that Rudy Giuliani isn’t a fan of the man who currently holds his former position: mayor of New York City.
That’s because Bill de Blasio is about as far as you can get from “America’s Mayor.”
However, what’s surprising is just how deeply Giuliani feels the pain of what the city has become under de Blasio, now a contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
In a Friday appearance on “Fox & Friends,” Giuliani said “it breaks my heart” to see what Gotham has become under de Blasio.
“I worked tirelessly to [improve the city],” he said. “A lot of my friends told me I couldn’t do it. A lot of my friends told me I was crazy to run for mayor.”
“It’s going to get worse, and take a while because de Blasio was handed the best-run city in America by [Michael] Bloomberg,” Giuliani said in the interview.
“If you are handed a great business, I don’t care how dumb you are, how stupid you are, how lazy you are, it’s going to work on its own for a while.”
“I think this is an exceptional city,” said Giuliani, who was mayor from 1994 until 2001. “There is none like it in the world, and to see this man break down not only what I did — but what Bloomberg did — I mean Bloomberg and I don’t see eye-on-eye on politics, but I thought he was a very good mayor.”
Bloomberg, a Republican-turned-independent, served from 2002 until 2013. De Blasio took over in 2014, and things took a turn for the liberal.
Addressing homelessness in New York City — which reportedly reached a high earlier this year — Giuliani took de Blasio to task.
“Homelessness was gone and homelessness should be gone,” Giuliani said. “There’s a way to look at homelessness that these liberals just don’t get.”
“When I see a city with homeless people, I see a city with a mayor who doesn’t give a damn about people, because if you give a damn about people, you don’t let them lay on the street.”
The remarks came a day after de Blasio had appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to defend the fact he was staying in the presidential race — and beg for cash — even though his campaign has scarcely registered in the polls.
“I’ve said very clearly my goal is to get into those next debates — and that’s a month away until that cut-off period,” de Blasio said.
“I’m going to put ideas out there that I think are going to be meaningful for people. Even a $1 donation helps me to get into the next debates.”
De Blasio’s appearance came as he was fighting charges he was neglecting the city he was elected to run.
A New York Post report claiming he spent just seven hours at city hall in May, the month he launched his campaign, was published Monday.
Nevertheless, de Blasio talked about the “real, serious foundational changes” he had affected as mayor of New York City and said his role as executive of the nation’s largest city gave him the necessary qualifications for president.
“I’m able to, as a CEO, keep making sure my agencies are doing their jobs. That’s actually what qualifies you to be president of the United States — that you know how to run something as big and complex as this city,” de Blasio said.
When told that de Blasio said he’d made the city better, Giuliani responded, “Hah!”
“He must be smoking something,” Giuliani said. “Gee, I wonder what that would be.”
When asked about the men and women of the New York City Police Department and whether or not the mayor had their back, Giuliani responded, “Well, that’s why they turned their back on him.”
Giuliani was referring to the funerals for a pair of NYPD officers who were slaughtered in December 2014. As de Blasio delivered their eulogies, a multitude of cops turned their backs on him.
Giuliani also referenced “the irresponsible comments [de Blasio] made” before those killings.
The great irony here is that this is the record de Blasio is running on.
This is what he believes should make him a contender for president. No wonder he’s running at well under 1 percent.
Giuliani is currently one of President Donald Trump’s lawyers. You get the feeling that’s the closest any New York mayor, current or former, is going to get to the White House anytime soon.
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