New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared on “The Daily Show” for the second time on Tuesday night, focusing mainly the city’s growing income inequality and crime problem.
“We brought crime down across the board,” de Blasio said during the extended interview that was available online on Wednesday morning. “We do have a shooting problem. A shooting problem last year, and a shooting problem this year. Nothing like New York City had 15, 20 years ago. But something’s persistent, particularly around gangs. And we have new strategies to go in there.”
With recent statistics stating that homicides are up almost 20 percent this year, de Blasio earlier on Tuesday insisted in a press conference that there is “no more important priority for me than public safety.”
Stewart asked about the connection to the rising crime rate and the end of stop-and-frisk, to which de Blasio repeated NYPD Commissioner William Bratton’s remarks that “you can’t break the law to enforce the law.”
“We’re broadly on the right track” to ending stop-and-frisk, de Blasio said.
De Blasio also addressed income inequality, again calling for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. “Here’s the core point: Minimum wage used to mean you could actually live on … Can you live in New York City on $8.75 an hour?” The audience replied “no!”
Stewart got one of the best jokes of the night in when he opened by asking de Blasio about “height inequality.” “What about a situation where the one-percenters tower in the their ivory legs over the hoi polloi, the proletarian who are closer to the rats, the gutter, the subway?” De Blasio said he is “Darwinian” on that one.”
As for de Blasio’s plan to add 200,000 units of affordable housing, Stewart quipped “that would bring the total to 200,000.
There was no mention of de Blasio’s epic pizza-fork incident, which had central play during de Blasio’s first appearance last year.
