As New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announced overnight he was joining the crowded Democrat 2020 field, the hosts of The View were decidedly split on their opinion of De Blasio. Announcing the topic, co-host Whoopi Goldberg couldn’t stop laughing at the apparent absurdity of the unpopular De Blasio running for President, while her liberal co-hosts earnestly tried to make the case that he his radical policies had been good for New York.
As Whoopi explained he was running, she couldn’t stop chuckling. Meghan McCain booed as some audience members chimed in. Whoopi finally blasted the mayor’s decision, with a rundown of problems he caused or hasn’t been able to solve in the city:
Is this a good career move for him right now? No! What are you doing? [ Applause ] Not a good career move, man. Here's the thing that you didn't mention. Homelessness is near record highs. Congestive pricing will take the minimum wage money that we just gave to people and take it away from them because they have to pay the congestive pricing. Public housing is falling apart. We can’t seem to fire anybody. The subway is under served. The buses are slow. What the hell are you going to do? [ Cheers and applause ] Finish doing what you're doing here. Finish being the mayor!
McCain was laughing hysterically during this rant while Sunny Hostin and Joy Behar looked on, stonefaced. Finally Behar could take it no more and quipped, “He’s done some good things!” before offering this defense of his radical policies:
He passed universal pre-K programs. The number of 4-year-olds enrolled has almost quadrupled. He's increased funding for affordable housing even if they’re not being maintained properly. He championed a freeze on rent increases. That’s important. Especially commercial rent, that’s what’s killing the city. He raised the minimum wage to $15. He dramatically reduced stop and frisk. The murder rate is lowest in decades. He promotes legalizing the sale of marijuana.
Sunny Hostin also chimed in with her pitch of his nutty liberal policies:
He improved a legal guarantee for paid sick leave, paid vacation time for all New Yorkers and something I think is fantastic, there's now a fully comprehensive guaranteed health care system and it targets 600,000 uninsured residents, half of them are undocumented immigrants. New York is the only place that does that. So while there are a lot of faults for Bill De Blasio, but he's done a lot for the think. Donald Trump, nobody in New York voted for Donald Trump, but America voted for Donald Trump. So the fact that he maybe hasn’t been that successful here, I don’t think the rest of America cares.
Neither one mentioned his radical abortion stance.
McCain pointed out that he was also wildly unpopular with New York Democrats, some who even showed up to protest him today on Good Morning America:
This morning on GMA people were screaming liar so loud outside that George Stephanopoulos had to say there's -- protesters out here. 76% of New Yorkers said he shouldn’t run for President. There's a violent crime rise. There's a measles outbreak. Increase in homelessness. He's a climate change hypocrite. He drives to and from Gracie mansion to Brooklyn in an eleven mile caravan yet he’s advocating for the Green New Deal. On top of everything else, he killed the groundhog. I feel like that's important to America. We have the video. He did. He dropped this groundhog!
