President Trump spoke glowingly of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during Friday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing.
De Blasio, who has spoken out against Trump’s actions regarding the pandemic, has received backlash in his own right for comments he made earlier this month.
The president said he and the mayor didn’t know each other well previously but said, “I’ve spoken to him a lot, Mayor de Blasio, and we’ve really had incredibly productive discussions.”
Trump explained, “We’ve helped him, I think, a lot, and I’ve really gotten to like him. I get along with him very well. Now, he wants us to do certain things, and we’ve produced. Today, I spoke to him with the Secretary of Defense Esper, and we had a great conversation, and we’re helping him get some of the things he needs. I don’t have to go into great detail, but he is very happy about what we’re able to do for him today. And he’s like us. He is working very hard, but I can’t say anything bad about Mayor de Blasio. My relationship with him over the last couple of weeks has been excellent, and we’ve done a good job for him, too.”
The president’s praise is drastically different from the messaging coming from Kellyanne Conway, one of his senior advisers.
She has accused de Blasio of downplaying the pandemic over “telling people to go out on the town on March 2.” Conway has made the claim on multiple occasions this week.
