New York City

Mayor de Blasio pokes fun at his progressive-left image on ‘The Daily Show’

Topics: Snow, pizza, carriage horses, pre-K, UES

February 4, 2014 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle
DeBlasio_JonStewart_byRobBennett_Office of Mayor Bill de Blasio_500.jpg
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Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled his diabolical plans to bring snow to the Upper East Side and noted that the Che Guevara posters in his office “are very popular, they really are,” on his Monday night appearance on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

The comedy talk show host and his Mayoral guest seemed very much on the same wavelength as they mutually poked fun at de Blasio’s progressive-left image and his penchant for eating pizza with a fork.

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With the tape rolling even as eight inches of snow were being plowed from city streets, the recent series of winter storms were very much a theme. Stewart, noting that it has been snowing a lot since de Blasio was inaugurated, pointed out, “I remember Bloomberg. Twelve years. It never snowed once.”

De Blasio parried, “I think he paid the right guy. I mean, he had the money.”

The segments — most hilarious, some a tad more serious — were described in full by pool reporter Mike Grynbaum of the New York Times.

In one scene, Stewart, devilishly playing on complaints that the Upper East Side wasn’t plowed properly during the last big storm, introduced a “newscast” reporting on conditions around the city after Monday’s snow.

“De Blasio got an earful from the tony East Side residents used to Mayor Bloomberg carrying them individually from their apartments to the chopper. … So did de Blasio handle today’s snowstorm better?” Stewart asked.

Correspondent Samantha Bee, “reporting” from Time Square, happily told Stewart that business was booming in that “landmark district,” while Jessica Williams, reporting from Brooklyn (in beach clothes and standing in front of a beach backdrop), said, “There are no traffic problems. In fact, it’s 82 degrees and it’s sunny.”

But Aasif Mandvi, on the Upper East Side, had grimmer news.

“Not good, Jon,” he said, buried in a snowbank with only his head showing. “It seems de Blasio’s plows are actively bringing snow in.”

“Aasif, are you completely buried in a snowbank?” Stewart asked.

“I can’t move my legs, Jon,” Aasif replied. “But hey, that’s life in de Blasio’s New York. He’s hellbent on making the city unlivable for the rich!”

On a more serious note, de Blasio talked about his love for his new job. “It’s nonstop. It’s 24-7. It’s the ultimate 24-7 job. But I love this place. I really love this place. And it’s endlessly fascinating to me, but I’d like the snow to end. I’ve done the snow experience, I’d like to try something else now.”

“What else could we do to the Upper East Side?” Stewart asked.

“We have an experimental effort to get locusts in up there,” de Blasio shot back, eliciting cheers from an audience that apparently felt no empathy for Upper East Siders.

In another segment, Stewart demonstrated to the Mayor the proper New York method of eating a pizza with his hands. He  mischievously added, “Hey, Bloomberg’s gone, right?” Stewart pulled out an enormous 7-Up Double Gulp filled with soda, eliciting loud cheers from the audience.

Other topics of the taping included the Mayor’s feeling about carriage horses — “Horses do not belong in the middle of traffic in New York City” — and stop-and-frisk. “You can’t break the law to enforce the law, as simple as that,” said de Blasio.

Stewart jerked de Blasio’s chain about the battle over funding Pre-K, asking why the state and the city could not split the bill. “Why can’t we go 50-50 on this bad boy?” Stewart asked.

“You know, I like the way you think,” de Blasio laughed, then reiterated what he has been saying since his campaign began: “Because we need to know the money is going to be there year after year.”

Kudos to Mike Grynbaum of the Times for his pool reporting. Check out his take on the Mayor’s appearance here.


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