Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio are getting into the Thanksgiving spirit this week by doing what they do best — complaining about each other even though they are obligated to pretend they like each other since they can’t avoid seeing each other a few times every year.
Just like family!
Cuomo was in Bed-Stuy on Tuesday for a Campaign Against Hunger event, and couldn’t help complaining about de Blasio’s new $2.6 billion plan to fight homelessness. “This is not about throwing money at the problem,” he said. According to the New York Observer, the governor, who has a history of explaining his many problems with de Blasio to the press, added, “[The homeless problem] has been getting worse and worse and worse. It hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, in my opinion.”
Meanwhile, de Blasio was attending an event at Penn Station about transportation funding with Westchester County executive Rob Astorino, who happened to run against Cuomo in 2014. Cuomo thought that de Blasio’s decision to attend the event with Astorino made no sense. “You’re talking to the wrong guy if you think I’m going to be able to decipher the mayor’s politics,” he said, according to the New York Daily News. “The Republican who I ran against, this is a man who is against a woman’s right to choose, this is a man who wants to lock refugees out of this country — it is not a person who I would stand next to.”
De Blasio responded to Cuomo’s comments by saying, “If we’re going to work in a bipartisan fashion, we’re going to work with people who we respect but have respectful disagreements with.” It was not clear if this inclusive political-kindness strategy extended to Cuomo. Astorino directly insulted his former opponent. “It seems like the governor has some insecurities,” he said, “and since he’s a constituent of mine, I’d be more than happy to set him up with our Department of Community Mental Health, if he actually needs a little help.” De Blasio quickly chimed in, after a quick laugh, per Newsday, “I don’t agree with his last comment.”
