‘The View’s’ Joy Behar Piles on Bill de Blasio for ‘Attacking’ Obama at Debate

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio got some negative headlines this week when he reportedly made passengers on his Delta plane wait for up to 10 minutes on the tarmac so he could rush to the set of The View. So the big question when his appearance aired Friday morning: Was it worth it?

Things started off with a tough intro from Joy Behar, who noted that de Blasio “really came for Joe Biden at Wednesday night's debates” and said he was “here to tell us why he went after Uncle Joe instead of attacking the real problem: Benedict Donald.”

When he sat down, Behar also accused him of “attacking” President Obama. “I was not attacking Obama, let's get real,” de Blasio said, insisting that it was fair game to criticize the Obama administration’s immigration policies. “Do you think these questions aren't going to come up later?” he asked.

“I was challenging Biden because I wanted to hear him say, here's what I did, here's what I stand for, because whoever is going to be the Democratic nominee has to be able to do it,” de Blasio added. “Donald Trump is smart. I don't agree with a thing he says, but he's smart, he’s tough and i say this as a New Yorker.” 

Later, Meghan McCain went after de Blasio for campaigning for president in Iowa during the New York City blackout that left tens of thousands in the dark—while still remaining at the bottom of polls there. “How will ignoring your city in the middle of a historical blackout to campaign to basically no one in Iowa change that?” she asked. McCain started to say that his absence bothered her as a “New Yorker” before catching herself and saying she really thinks of herself as an “Arizonian.” 

De Blasio pushed back, arguing not only that it was the first major NYC blackout in 13 years but also that it was resolved relatively quickly. “Respectfully, the way you made it sound, it was a scheduled blackout and I decided to go someplace else,” he said. “That's not how it happens.”

The interview didn’t get any easier for the mayor when Ana Navarro started to grill him about his support for Cuba and quoting Che Guevara during his campaign launch, something for which he later apologized. 

Ultimately, de Blasio was lucky they had to cut to commercial before anyone could bring up his handling of the Eric Garner case.