A Fake Bill de Blasio Fooled a Major Paper Just to Trash His Protégé’s Politics — and Everyone Fell for It.NH
A Bill de Blasio imposter duped a reporter with a scathing interview, slamming his Democratic socialist pal Zohran Mamdani just days before the elections — forcing the publication to yank the story offline.
The Times of London report, published about an hour and 30 minutes before it was taken down, claimed de Blasio told the newspaper that the Democratic nominee’s math on his proposed $10 billion in socialist freebies “doesn’t hold up.”
“In my view, the math doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, and the political hurdles are substantial,” de Blasio was quoted as saying about Mamdani’s plan to fund his pie-in-the-sky promises, like free buses and universal childcare.
“While the ambition is admirable, the cost estimates — reportedly exceeding $7 billion annually — rest on optimistic assumptions… about eliminating waste and raising revenue through new taxes.”
But de Blasio told The Post soon after the UK Times’ article was published that “story is entirely false and fabricated.”
“I never talked to that reporter and I never said those things,” he claimed. “I believe in Zohran and his vision, which I’ve said publicly many times.”
“I’m demanding via my tweet that they take down the story immediately,” he added, referring to a similar statement he posted on X calling the article fake news.
Soon after, the article page showed an “error” message with the words “Sorry, we can’t find the page you are looking for.”
A spokesperson for the paper later acknowledged what happened, saying it had said sorry and removed the story.
“The Times has apologized to Bill de Blasio and removed the article immediately after discovering that our reporter had been misled by an individual falsely claiming to be the former New York mayor,” the spokesperson said.
De Blasio has publicly supported the leading mayoral contender, even sporting a “Hot Girls for Zohran” T-shirt at a recent protest.
He endorsed the Queens assemblyman in a fawning op-ed about in September — claiming his “bold, sweeping” agenda would save the city.
“We don’t just need Zohran Mamdani to be our mayor because he has the right ideas, or because they can be achieved,” de Blasio wrote in the op-ed.
The DSA hopeful — who recently praised de Blasio as his favorite, recent New York City mayor– has proposed cutting billions from the budget and a tax hike on the wealthy and corporations to cover the tab for his to-do list.
De Blasio has long been an ally of Mayor Eric Adams and even gave him a heads-up that the op-ed was coming, telling the incumbent he would have been in his corner if stuck with the Democratic Party line.
Adams just recently backed ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s independent bid for mayor and was out on the campaign trail stumping for him on Tuesday.
