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NYC mayoral debate: Hardest jabs by de Blasio, Malliotakis and Dietl

Ding, ding, ding! Round 2 of the mayoral debate between incumbent Mayor Bill de Blasio, Republican candidate Assemb. Nicole Malliotakis and independent Bo Dietl went down on Wednesday night.

Following the raucous first general debate — which featured constant interruptions and yelling from the audience, the expulsion of a rowdy crowd member and shouting matches between candidates, Dietl had joked that perhaps the next debate would come down to a “fist fight.”

Although the final debate, which aired on CBS 2 and WLNY-TV, was a touch more subdued than the last, the candidates still traded jabs on myriad policy topics. 

Below are the biggest blows and the hardest hits of the night.

– “I’m a person who actually takes the subway, not just for photo opportunities,” Dietl said, throwing the first right hook of the night at de Blasio.

– Malliotakis said taxpayers “have been abused” under the current administration.

– De Blasio was quick to fire back with a campaign standby, arguing that Malliotakis had supported President Donald Trump, whose current tax reform plan would hurt the middle class.

– Malliotakis came back with another jab, accusing de Blasio of allowing low-income earners to subsidize property taxes on his Brooklyn home. She returned to this same line again, really driving the blow home, while discussing de Blasio’s millionaire’s tax, suggesting he’s fine with taxing the rich to fix the subways but won’t pay his fair share of taxes on his property. “I’m taking on millionaire Bill de Blasio and his friends.”

– “You want the people of New York to think we’re that stupid,” Dietl spat at de Blasio during a long rant about his donors scandal. “He gave you $200,000! I got big problems…This city is corrupt like heck.”

– De Blasio accused Malliotakis of “purposely exposing people’s personal information” to the federal government when she filed a lawsuit to stop the destruction of IDNYC records.

– While responding to a question on the effectiveness of metal bollards in stopping terror attacks involving vehicles, Malliotakis said her administration, unlike de Blasio’s, “would be proactive, not reactive.”

– “You think people listening tonight are going to take your nonsense and believe it?” Dietl said to de Blasio while discussing the city’s property tax system.

– “We don’t need to be building 90 additional shelters, as the mayor wants to do, in the communities,” Malliotakis said. “This is a mismanagement issue.”

– “If we had a mayor who could work with Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo,” Malliotakis jabbed at de Blasio during her homelessness response.

– Malliotakis claimed the people who benefit most from de Blasio’s homeless plan are hotel owners who have deals with the city to house shelter residents. “There’s something fishy going on there.”

– Dietl accused de Blasio of hiring unqualified people to run his administration.

– “He does enough shaking down of those big donors”: Malliotakis came at de Blasio with this sucker punch during a back and forth over city transit.

– Malliotakis often cites statistics that rape incidents have gone up in the city under the de Blasio administration, but moderator Maurice DuBois said he could not locate those stats. De Blasio cut in and said, “you know, I can’t locate those statistics either.”

– My line is “dump the mayor. You know what mayor I want to dump — you,” Dietl said in his closing statement, accusing de Blasio of being a criminal.