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Bill De Blasio Is So Bad At This
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Sep 6, 2019
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Sep 6, 2019
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Let's say you're the mayor of New York City and you're also running for president. Problem is, you're polling at around zero percent, you missed qualifying for the upcoming debate, and you're not attracting nearly enough donors to hack it for the next one in October. You need people to pay attention to you, lots of people. Voters need to see that there's a lotta spine there, a lotta steel there, that you can cut through the noise and lay out your (mostly popular!) beliefs in a pithy, punchy way. Tucker Carlson, now there's a hate-filled husk you can rail against without feeling bad that you're wasting anyone's time or alienating potential voters. IHOP won't even sell pancakes on his program because of all the racism! So you swallow some more pride (it goes down surprisingly easy these days), go on Tucker Carlson's show, and show the world why you're the toughest Progressive in the bunch, who won't pull any — wait, no, no you don't, you're Bill de Blasio.
Yes, Mayor de Blasio went on Tucker Carlson's show last night, between 10 minutes of straight up climate science denial and five minutes of a pseudo journalist complaining about antifa, ostensibly to talk about his new idea to institute a federal "robot tax" on companies who automate jobs in order to help middle class manufacturing workers transition to different careers.
"God bless you," Carlson told de Blasio, after dropping a few perfunctory niceties for having the courage to come on his program and talk about something few politicians have the political will to talk about, as if it were an actual forum for debate and not a staging ground for rage-based virality.
"Thank you Tucker, I appreciate that you care deeply about this issue of automation because it's bearing down on all of us," de Blasio replied, like someone who had never watched let alone appeared on FOX News before.
But if you think Tucker Carlson actually brought de Blasio on to talk about a substantive policy position, you're either a fool, or the mayor of a city of eight and a half million people.
Less than four minutes into their "conversation," Carlson cuts to the chase: "If you really believe that automation is a threat to low-skilled jobs, why are you for mass immigration? What are all these people going to do, that we're importing, with your help?"
De Blasio attempts to steer the conversation back to automation, but it's no use.
"The city is dirty and it's getting dirtier," Carlson declares, as millions of FOX News viewers turned the volume on their flatscreens higher and higher, french vanilla ice cream dancing on their tongues, lolling in trained ecstasy.
"One of my producers told me just yesterday that he was in a crowded subway car when a man dropped his trousers and defecated in the middle of the car and nobody did anything about it. And that's a metaphor for what's happening," Carlson said, referring to New York City, but also to the interview itself.
"We have challenges, no doubt, and I don't accept a situation like that," de Blasio responded. "I'm someone who believes that quality of life has to be addressed aggressively, I believe in quality-of-life policing and I always have. That kind of situation is unacceptable. But the big picture is, we are safest big city in America...We have 500,000 new jobs since I became mayor, the largest number of jobs in our history right now. We got problems, unquestionably, but there's also a lot of areas where this city is doing very, very well."
And on and on it went, Carlson shouting things like "rat complaints!" while Mayor de Blasio expressed his support for Broken Windows policing and job-creation for the benefit of conservative FOX viewers who wouldn't vote for him if he got plastic surgery to look like Ronald Reagan and changed his name to MAGA de Cracker Barrel.
It ended with Carlson asking de Blasio about his gym habits, and whether he would pledge to not have any bodyguards who carry assault weapons after he leaves office (really).
This weekend, de Blasio will campaign in New Hampshire and Puerto Rico.
Tagged
tucker carlson
bill de blasio
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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