Is that truly you, Bill?
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has finally acknowledged that the progressive push to “defund the police” and the adoption of relaxed border policies were misguided approaches for the United States.
De Blasio—who was recently confused in a news report for another individual with the same name—offered this surprising admission during a conversation with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on the latter’s podcast, “Hang Out with Sean Hannity.”
“Looking back, the idea of ‘defunding the police’ just didn’t add up,” de Blasio remarked, sipping a margarita as he reflected.
“It was logical to ask, ‘how can we improve?’ It was sensible to emphasize—something even many officers and police leaders have told me—that we must invest more in youth, providing them with positive opportunities, which ultimately benefits law enforcement and enhances safety,” he continued.
Hannity replied, “We’re not disagreeing, right? This is incredible.”
De Blasio responded, “So far weâre doing good. Weâre doingâso defund was a mistake. And I understand where it came from, but it was a mistake.”
De Blasio belatedly admitted that Biden’s lax border policy had failed in another segment in the sitdown.
“Weâre going to have some common ground. Are you ready?” de Blasio teased Hannity.
“Iâm shocked,” Hannity said.
“OK â I donât like what Biden did with the border,” said de Blasio, who served as mayor from 2014 to 2021.
Hannity asked him, “Why didnât you say it then?”
“Because honestly,” de Blasio said, “I didnât think it was as bad as it was. And then, when I saw it during Bidenâs time, that he was able to reverse course in that final year and tighten up the borderâno, I mean, thatâs the irony.”
Hannity fired back that Biden moved too late to tighten the border and didnât deserve credit for a turnaround. His lax enforcement triggered a migrant crisis that flooded the Big Apple and other municipalities with hundreds of thousands of desperate asylum seekers, Hannity said.
“Something changed. Obviously, something changed,” de Blasio said.
“So we better drink more of your margarita,â Hannity joked. âThis is going to get tougher.”
De Blasio then confesses, “We, as Democrats, rightfully deserve that critique.”
Right-of-center New Yorkers got a kick out of de Blasio’s about-face.
“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” quipped state Conservative Party chairman Gerard Kassar.
“Unfortunately, de Blasio didn’t say this when he had the power to make a difference. But I’m glad he’s admitting he’s wrong.”
Kassar said de Blasio just could have worked by the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, which was temporarily used as a migrant shelter, to understand how bad the border crisis had gotten.
During his time as mayor, de Blasio never outright called to “defund the police” but he supported trimming $1 billion from the police budget in 2020 as protests flared in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
The City Council approved an $88.1 billion budget overnight that included shifting roughly $1 billion away from the NYPD.
At the time the then-mayor defended the cuts and said he was “very comfortable we struck the right balance.”
“We are reducing the size of our police force by not having the next recruit class,â he said at the time. âWe are reducing our overtime levels. We’re shifting functions away from police to civilian agencies.â
But by April 2021, he had reversed course and decided to spend $105 million to build a new NYPD precinct in Southeast Queens — a top priority of black constituents, reversing a decision to eliminate the project the prior year when he was under pressure to cut the police budget.
