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De Blasio says Bloomberg should apologize for more than stop-and-frisk
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has more to apologize for than his administration’s use of stop-and-frisk policing if he decides to run for president, Mayor Bill de Blasio charged Monday night.
De Blasio told NY1 that he believes his billionaire predecessor “really missed the boat” on assisting New Yorkers affected by the “Great Recession” of 2008 and addressing the “income inequality that was gripping the city.”
“He didn’t have the ability to understand what working people are going through and when people needed help,” said de Blasio, who quit his own bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination.
“There was no plan from the city of New York [under Bloomberg],” said De Blasio.
“The Recession, you know, that hit in 2008. He still had a lot more time left in his mayoralty. He really had no plan to address it the whole time.”
De Blasio, who replaced the term-limited billionaire as mayor in 2014, also continued to take shots at a potential Bloomberg presidential candidacy while questioning the motivation behind Bloomberg’s stunning Sunday apology for his administration’s use of stop-and-frisk.
De Blasio said Bloomberg has had plenty of time to apologize yet strategically waited until he was seriously mulling a White House bid.
When asked by NY1 if he thought Bloomberg’s apology was “phony,” de Blasio said, “I’m not inside his head, but it sure doesn’t look particularly authentic.”
Bloomberg on Sunday said he now believes stop-and-frisk was a “misguided policy” that put officers in the line of fire.
The shocking reversal came three days after he apologized for past boorish and sexist comments he made in the 1990s and early 2000s about women.
Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser declined comment.
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