NEW YORK CITY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Mayor Bill de Blasio's frustration with Albany was behind the stinging criticism the mayor issued against him last week.
"It was clear he was frustrated. It's clear that his style is to air his public frustration," Cuomo said Tuesday at an unrelated press conference at New York University Law School.
"Everybody has their own style. I don't choose to do that," Cuomo added. "I try to bite my tongue once in a while on personal feelings."
The remarks come a week after de Blasio issued a stinging public rebuke of Cuomo and his style of politics, saying the governor obstructed many of the city's legislative goals in Albany.
"It keeps playing out in ways that I think sometimes are about deal making, sometimes about revenge,” de Blasio said in an interview with reporters last week. “Each situation obviously is different. But it’s not about policy. It’s not about substance, it’s certainly not about the millions of people affected.”
Cuomo said de Blasio's comments stem from the mayor's disappointment that he didn't get everything he wanted out of the legislative session.
De Blasio asked for mayoral control of the schools to be made permanent. Instead it was extended for just a year, much shorter than the six-plus year terms Michael Bloomberg was able to wrangle. The 421-a tax break was not overhauled and Cuomo said de Blasio's proposal to do so wouldn't work. De Blasio's proposals to strengthen rent regulations also went by the wayside.
"Welcome to Albany," Cuomo said. "I was frustrated. I didn't get everything I wanted."
De Blasio was especially angered by the one-year renewal of mayoral control of schools, calling it an outcome that was "unacceptable by any measure."
Cuomo said that Senate Republicans had no interest in renewing mayoral control, an issue he called "controversial," and that the one-year extension was actually a victory.
"Renewal for one year is better than expiration, right?" asked Cuomo.
Cuomo also refuted de Blasio's assertion that he did not have the best interests of New York City residents at heart.
"I know what New York City people want and they really don't care all that much about the mayor's personal feelings, about me or my personal feelings about the mayor," the governor said.
Cuomo and de Blasio, who claim to be friends, have been engaging in a back-and-forth war of words for months.
Would Cuomo be willing to sit down at a "pasta summit" at Rao's in East Harlem, as offered by former Sen. Al D' Amato to work out their differences?
"I know how I feel about pasta," Cuomo said. "I'm just not sure about a pasta summit."
