During a recent interview, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Bill de Blasio, a Democrat in the race to replace him, is running a "racist" campaign based on "class warfare," the Washington Post reports.
Bloomberg made the comment about candidate Bill de Blasio in an interview with New York magazine due on newsstands Monday. It appeared on the magazine's Web site Saturday.
De Blasio is white, but he has been polling well among blacks since he began airing television ads featuring his interracial family. His wife is black and the couple has a 16-year-old son. De Blasio has criticized Bloomberg as not doing enough for the poor, saying New York has become "two cities," one for the rich and one for everyone else.
Asked to explain why that makes the campaign "racist," Bloomberg told the magazine: "I mean, he's making an appeal using his family to gain support. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone watching what he's been doing. I do not think he himself is racist. It's comparable to me pointing out I'm Jewish in attracting the Jewish vote."
Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire, said he also found de Blasio's "two cities" rhetoric divisive.
Read more at the Washington Post.