In many ways, you can’t blame Mayor Bill de Blasio for feeling better about things lately. The city’s reopening from the COVID-19 pandemic and he’s got only four months left in a thankless job for which he’s taken plenty of heat from the public these past 7 1/2 years.
But we can only imagine his giddiness went up a few notches at midnight Tuesday, when his long-time arch-nemesis from Albany — Andrew Cuomo — officially resigned as governor, giving way to Kathy Hochul.
De Blasio offered hearty congratulations to her in a Tuesday morning tweet: “New York City is ready to work shoulder to shoulder with you to bring our state back and build a recovery for all of us.”
Congratulations, @GovKathyHochul!
New York City is ready to work shoulder to shoulder with you to bring our state back and build a recovery for all of us.
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) August 24, 2021
The mayor continued gushing over the changing of the guard at his Tuesday morning press briefing, held moments after Hochul’s ceremonial inauguration in Albany.
“I am happy that we have a new governor, we needed one,” the mayor said. “[Kathy Hochul] is a good person who I look forward to be working with. It’s just a good day to be turning the page.”
For her part, Hochul seemed just as welcoming of de Blasio during her post-inaugural press conference.
“He actually called me prior to his announcement yesterday [about vaccine mandates for teachers] to alert me and we talked about this era of cooperation,” Hochul said. “There will be no blindsiding, there’ll be just full cooperation, because I need his best and brightest integrated with my best and brightest, and that’s how we’ll get through this. And for me, that’s just a simple approach; it’s what I’ve always done.”
Talk about a departure from the previously relationship between Cuomo and de Blasio, who couldn’t seem to get along about anything.
The COVID-19 pandemic truly highlighted the bitterness; at a time when New Yorkers demanded direction and unity from government officials, de Blasio and Cuomo went at it, in public and private, over capacity restrictions, school closings and reopenings, responses to localized virus hotspots and more.
Cuomo constantly sniped at the mayor, almost always without ever mentioning his name, after crime began spiking New York City last summer. The former governor suggested that de Blasio was too incompetent to handle the situation — even going as far as to heap praise on the mayor’s likely successor, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, in his farewell address that reeked of passive-aggressive criticism of de Blasio.
“Eric Adams will be the next mayor of New York City. I think he’ll bring a new philosophy and competence to the position which can give New York City residents hope for the future,” Cuomo said.
For months, de Blasio had called for Cuomo to step aside as one scandal after another rocked Albany — from the under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes to sexual harassment allegations that 11 women lodged against the former governor.
De Blasio spoke publicly of being subjected to Cuomo intimidation and bullying, especially in the aftermath of Cuomo’s public outburst against Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim back in March.
But now that rivalry is finally over, with the most unlikely of outcomes.
Mayor de Blasio entered office in the middle of Cuomo’s first term; he had expected to leave Gracie Mansion in the final year of Cuomo’s third term — and up until early this year, it seemed that Cuomo wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Suddenly, de Blasio is now liberated from the yoke of Cuomo. He has four months now to deal with new Governor Hochul — and so far, it seems like the beginning of a beautiful, albeit brief, friendship.
That began on Aug. 17 with a meeting between de Blasio and Hochul in Manhattan, which they spoke about in a joint statement: “We had a productive conversation today discussing issues that are important to New Yorkers, from fighting the Delta variant to getting our kids back to school safely this fall to keeping our communities safe. We look forward to working with each other to continue New York City’s recovery and end the fight against COVID.”
De Blasio would be wise to continue extending as many olive branches as possible to Hochul in the hope of rebuilding the burned bridge between New York’s state capital and New York state’s largest city (in population and tax income).
Doing so would not only further ease our recovery, but also set the table nicely for the next mayor to succeed with Hochul in ways de Blasio couldn’t with Cuomo.
Even so, de Blasio couldn’t resist one last parting shot on Cuomo during his Tuesday briefing, taking the former governor to task for a farewell address that critics viewed as self-centered and unapologetic.
“I’m glad we are ending that chapter and it’s a very sad chapter, and you know, there could have been so much good and instead we see the corrupting influence of power. Too much power corrupts and this is a case of too much unchecked power,” de Blasio said. “And I would’ve really appreciated if in his final words he acknowledged the pain he caused to so many women, if he acknowledged the pain he caused to so many families in terms of nursing homes. I think that would’ve been gracious and appreciated — we saw the exact opposite, I think that’s sad, honestly.”
