In a September op-ed, former mayor Bill de Blasio officially endorsed Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani , praising his ambitious platform calling for universal child care, a rent freeze for tenants in stabilized apartments, and free buses.

“We don’t just need Zohran Mamdani to be our mayor because he has the right ideas, or because they can be achieved. We need him because in his heart and in his bones he cannot accept a city that prices out the people who built it and keep it running,” he wrote in the Daily News .

But the local political scene was briefly stunned when a reputable British newspaper published an article featuring quotes of the former mayor seemingly bashing Mamdani’s proposals, statements that de Blasio emphatically said he never made.

“I want to be 100%

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