Bill de Blasio QUITS long-shot presidential bid after never escaping bottom tier of Democrats and Trump twists the knife: 'NYC is devastated, he's coming home!'
- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio left the presidential race on Friday morning
- Low-polling candidate said in a TV interview: 'It's clearly not my time'
- De Blasio never got above 1 per cent in a national poll and averaged 0.2 per cent
- Donald Trump lost no time jabbing the 'part-time mayor' who was savaged during his campaign for ignoring his responsibilities at home
- 'NYC is devastated, he’s coming home!' the president tweeted
- He bashed him again him in the Oval Oval, unprompted, claiming 'he'll be able to work a little bit harder' now that he's back in New York
Bill de Blasio ended his long-shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination on Friday, ending a candidacy that showed little sign of taking off amid a crowded field.
The New York City mayor's dalliance with White House ambitions made him deeply unpopular at home as he pursued what critics called a vanity project while ignoring his obligations in the Big Apple.
Upon his return from a weekend campaign swing, de Blasio announced from New York City that he was bowing out.
'I feel like I've contributed all I can to this primary election and it's clearly not my time,' he said on MSNBC. 'So, I’m going to end my presidential campaign.'
President Donald Trump lost no time twisting the knife in de Blasio's back. The fellow New Yorker nagged at his political rival in Oval Office remarks while he met with the Australian prime minister.
'I see that our part time-time mayor will be now going back to New York, so he'll be able to work a little bit harder,' the president asserted. 'But he dropped out of the presidential race a little while ago. Too bad. He had tremendous potential.'
Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, has quit his long-shot presidential bid, telling a 'Morning Joe' audience that 'it's clearly not my time'
New York City Mayor and former Democratic U.S. Presidential candidate Bill de Blasio, with his wife Chirlane McCray, speaks at a news conference after announcing that he was ending his presidential bid in New York on Friday
Trump added, 'He only had one real asset. You know what it was? Height. Other than that, he has nothing going.'
Throughout de Blasio's stint as a presidential candidate, Trump mocked his height. The Democrat eventually wove it into his pitch for the presidency.
His polling never measured quite as high, however, and he dropped out out of the race ten days before the cut-off date to qualify for the next national debate.
Trump gleefully celebrated his exit from the race in a tweet less than a half hour after de Blasio dropped out on MSNBC's flagship morning show.
'Oh no, really big political news, perhaps the biggest story in years! Part time Mayor of New York City, @BilldeBlasio, who was polling at a solid ZERO but had tremendous room for growth, has shocking[ly] dropped out of the Presidential race. NYC is devastated, he’s coming home!' the president jabbed.
The mayor spent just eleven hours working at City Hall during the month after he announced his White House run.
Friday afternoon de Blasio held a news conference outside Gracie Mansion, the mayor's New York City home, to insist that he'd been hard at work the entire time he was seeking higher office.
'I have been working constantly throughout the last four months on things that really matter to New Yorkers,' he said.
De Blasio cited the city's budget as an example and non-specific 'progress of all kinds' in his argument that Average Joes 'get it' unlike political insiders driving those criticisms.
'Everyday New Yorkers see things happening all the time,' he asserted.
President Donald Trump, who has feuded with de Blasio for years, lost no time in kicking sand at his now-former rival
'NYC is devastated, he's coming home!' Trump tweeted about de Blasio, reinforcing the view that the mayor was a 'part time' leader while he chased a vanity-project White House dream
The two men got into an online shouting match on the first day of de Blasio's campaign in May.
Trump, he said at the time, was 'a con artist. I know his tricks. I know his playbook.'
The president tweeted back at him, mocking the mayor as 'another beauty' who wanted to oust him.
'Bill de Blasio of NYC, considered the worst mayor in the U.S., will supposedly be making an announcement for president today. He is a JOKE, but if you like high taxes & crime, he’s your man. NYC HATES HIM!' the president wrote.
De Blasio never escaped the bottom tier of Democratic hopefuls during his four months in the race, averaging 0.2 per cent support among voters in an average of polls maintained by Real Clear Politics.
A national poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal that was released this week gave him one percent of support, which is half the threshold set by the Democratic National Committee for an Oct. 15 primary debate.
After making the first debate in June and a second one in July, de Blasio missed the mark for a September match, all but sealing his fate as a presidential candidate.
At Gracie Mansion on Friday, de Blasio said the debates became the 'Main Street of the campaign, and that affected everything' in the race from donors to polling.
He said he initially thought he could come back from missing the donor and polling requirements in September to make the October debate. 'But as we went over the last few weeks, every day that passed, it got tougher there wasn't more progress.'
'It just wasn't moving,' he said. 'Sometimes, it's just not your time. And that's OK.'
De Blasio told reporters the flaw with national polling is that it 'doesn't tell you what's going on in the debate over issues and ideas.' He said it's indicative of the 'horse race, which is bluntly really superficial.'
'I'm proud to have been one of the people pushing the party to go farther on health care. to focus more on the needs of working people and labor unions. It does matter,' he argued.
He was seen as one of the most liberal candidates in the race, embracing socialist wealth-redistribution policies and telling voters that most of the money in America is 'in the wrong hands.'
His most-remembered contribution to the debate stage conversation, though, may have been his criticisms of former Vice President and Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden.
'Joe Biden told wealthy donors that nothing with fundamentally change if he were president,' he said in Detroit. 'Kamala Harris said she's not trying to restructure society. Well, I am.'
That same evening, de Blasio warned Biden that Donald Trump would not go easy on him, if he's the party nominee, so he'd better locate his boxing gloves.
De Blasio credited himself in his exit news conference with pushing Biden to the left on critical issues.
'I have no doubt in my mind that this is where the party is going. I think more and more this is where the American people are going. I think that time matters a lot,' he said of his own political positions. 'Resource matters a lot, obviously. And I'm not someone who came into this with a huge amount of resources.'
He also claimed that the state budget deadline on April 1 and and the legislative session ending in June slowed down his campaigning when his competitors were out building momentum for themselves.
The mayor's presidential primary campaign events routinely drew tiny audiences, even in high-interest states like Iowa.
But he soldiered on, even when New Yorkers pilloried him for staying in the Hawkeye State instead of being in the city to help manage government resources after a July blackout.
De Blasio's presidential campaign donor base, however, was heavy on New Yorkers.
A majority of them had ties to New York City's Hotel Trades Council, according to the New York Post. the mayor owes that group's support to his public war against Airbnb.
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