De Blasio's New Side Hustle: Trolling Bloomberg

He urged Pete Buttigieg on Twitter to “not be so smug when you just got your ass kicked” in the Nevada caucuses. He told Joe Biden to “wake up!” to families that want better health care.

But most of the mayor’s ire has been directed toward his predecessor in City Hall, Michael Bloomberg.

He said Bloomberg’s policies as mayor were racist. He asserted that he has been “cleaning up Michael Bloomberg’s mess for six years.”

And any suggestion to the contrary from Bloomberg? “Self-centered delusion,” the mayor wrote on Twitter.

With his own presidential campaign an unqualified bust, de Blasio appears to have found his voice and renewed vigor as an attack dog for Sanders, the Democratic front-runner.

The most visceral component of that surrogacy has been de Blasio’s criticism of Bloomberg, enabling him to return to the theme of his successful 2013 mayoral campaign in which he cast himself as the anti-Bloomberg.

On Wednesday night, de Blasio appeared on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News for a second time — a forum where few Democrats venture.

The interview began with Hannity playing a clip of Bloomberg talking about his stop-and-frisk policy of throwing young men against walls.

“Thank you for playing that for your millions of viewers, because now more people are going to see who Mike Bloomberg really is,” de Blasio said.

The mayor’s attacks have angered Bloomberg’s allies, who have mostly avoided criticizing de Blasio even during his fleeting run for president last year. That informal policy has clearly ended.

“Few public officials anywhere are as innovative and clever as Bill de Blasio when it comes to repeated efforts at money laundering,” Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Bloomberg, posted on Twitter, referring to de Blasio’s questionable fundraising practices.

Loeser said it was his decision, not Bloomberg’s, to speak out against de Blasio.

“If he wants to present himself as an opinion maker to the American people, we’re going to have to remind people about his full legacy in office,” Loeser said in a phone interview, pointing to a de Blasio donor who pleaded guilty to using campaign contributions as bribes.

De Blasio’s attacks are a desperate attempt to gain relevance, Loeser said.

“It’s no secret that Bill de Blasio loves national politics and loves it more than being mayor,” he said.

De Blasio’s advocacy for Sanders has spurred speculation that the mayor may be strategically laying the groundwork for a spot in a future Sanders administration. The two are longtime allies; Sanders swore de Blasio in at his second mayoral inauguration.

Karen Hinton, a former press secretary for de Blasio, said his affection for Sanders was real, but suggested that he might also want a Cabinet post like secretary of housing and urban development.

“It’s where his heart has been all along,” she said of the Sanders endorsement, “but that doesn’t mean he isn’t also interested in working in the administration.”

The last time de Blasio visited Hannity’s show was in August when the mayor was trying to generate attention for his failing presidential campaign. They sparred for 41 minutes over various topics, from immigration and gun control to abortion and meatless Mondays the city’s schools.

This time, Hannity, an ally of Trump’s, found common ground with de Blasio over their disdain for Bloomberg.

Bloomberg has no “bedside manner” and “no common touch, no connection to people,” de Blasio said, before playfully inviting Hannity to Sanders’ inauguration.

Jon Paul Lupo, an adviser to de Blasio, said the mayor had consistently made the same arguments against Bloomberg.

“Mayor de Blasio is bringing the receipts, and you have to defend your record,” Lupo said.

Bloomberg, who served as mayor for 12 years, is actually more popular among New Yorkers. His approval rating is 59% among New York City residents, according to a Siena College poll this month. De Blasio, who is facing lame duck status with less than two years left in office, had his approval rating fall below 35% last year.

Joseph Borelli, a Republican councilman from Staten Island, said he enjoyed watching de Blasio and Bloomberg duke it out.

“It’s fun as a Republican, but it’s also fun as a student of New York City politics,” Borelli said. He noted that many of the reporters covering the presidential race and the White House had once covered Bloomberg or de Blasio in New York, and “know where all the bodies are buried.”

“You don’t get that with Mayor Pete,” he said, chuckling, “or God knows who covers Burlington, Vermont.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .