When former New York City mayor-turned-presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg addresses the nation’s mayors in Washington D.C. this week, one notable big city mayor will not be in the room.
Mayor Bill de Blasio intends to skip Bloomberg’s speech on Wednesday — even though he’s planning to attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting the same day. “He has other meetings scheduled,” de Blasio spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein told NBCNewYork.
Organizers say more than 270 mayors have registered for the conference and it’s expected that a majority will attend Bloomberg’s speech in the Presidential Ballroom of the Capital Hilton.
But ever since Mayor de Blasio’s White House bid failed and Bloomberg jumped in, de Blasio has gone out of his way to express disgust with his predecessor’s presidential run, slamming Bloomberg’s lavish spending and record on stop and frisk.
Critics, meanwhile, have called de Blasio “incapable of being gracious.”
De Blasio is also addressing the conference of Mayors earlier Wednesday.
