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For more than a decade, a long Island name of liquor importer bill deblasio Getting emails for someone else with almost the same name: ex new york City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Last week, he decided to respond – inadvertently setting off an international news cycle based on misinformation in the final days of the New York City mayoral election.
De Blasio received an email from a Times of London reporter asking for his thoughts on the Democratic mayoral candidates. Zohran MamdaniDeBlasio responded with a four-paragraph critique of the candidate’s agenda, which the actual ex-mayor has enthusiastically endorsed.
“I did some research on the proposals and I wrote down my ideas and used ChatGPT to fine-tune them a little bit,” DeBlasio, 59, told The Associated Press. “Then I forgot about it and went on vacation. I never thought it would be in the news.”
But it happened.
In an exclusive story published online Tuesday night, the Times of London reported that the former New York City mayor has now concluded that Mamdani’s ambitious agenda “does not hold up to scrutiny.”
Politician de Blasio immediately rejected the article on social media. It was removed within a few hours. The Times of London subsequently apologized, saying in a statement that its reporter had been “misled by a man claiming to be the former mayor of New York.”
DeBlasio, the wine importer — whose identity was first reported by Semaphore on Thursday — disputes the newspaper’s retelling.
“In no way did I call myself mayor,” he said. “The reporter addressed me as Mr. DeBlasio and I responded to him as Mr. DeBlasio. They accepted my quote without any investigation – now they’re blaming me?”
He added, “I’ve been Bill DeBlasio for 59 years.” “My father has been Bill DeBlasio for 85 years. My son has been Bill DeBlasio for 30 years. It’s our name, you know?” (De Blasio, the mayor, is 64, but he has kept his name for a shorter time: He was born Warren Wilhelm Jr. and later adopted his mother’s maiden name, de Blasio.)
He provided screenshots of the emails, which confirmed that the reporter did not specifically address his questions to the former mayor.
Nevertheless, DeBlasio acknowledged that he did not go out of his way to clear up the misunderstanding: “I said if you have any more questions, talk to my advisors, and I put my friends’ names out there.”
He added, “We all thought it was absolutely ridiculous.”
The former mayor does not agree with this idea. In an op-ed published in The Nation on Thursday, he blamed the episode on a “hyperpartisan” journalism landscape where “the standards of impartiality and decency are weakening week by week.”
A spokesperson for the Times of London said the outlet would not comment further on the confusion.
Long Island’s DeBlasio, meanwhile, said the prank felt like fair payback for years of harassment he suffered as a result of his nominal relationship with the two-term mayor.
“I’ve had thousands of conversations with people, angry, mean, nasty people who are saying the most horrible, horrible things,” he said. “It got to the point where I started getting messages every day telling me what a terrible person I was.”
At a New York Mets game years ago, she said, DeBlasio met briefly with de Blasio, who offered her an apology for the hate mail.
Describing his own politics as “middle of the road” conservative, DeBlasio said he would likely support Mamdani’s opponent, the former governor. Andrew Cuomo If he were eligible to vote in the city.
“The real Bill DeBlasio supports Cuomo,” he said. “You can print that.”