Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday bluntly addressed his controversial groundhog-dropping incident for the first time in a wide-ranging interview on his regrets as mayor.
Charlotte the groundhog died from internal injuries after jumping out of the mayor's fumbling grasp during the 2014 Groundhog Day celebration. New York's Staten Island Zoo allegedly attempted to cover up news that the animal had passed away from internal injuries a week later.
De Blasio sounded irritated about the infamous moment nearly a decade later. He told New York Magazine he "100%" regretted the incident and believed he shouldn't have been asked to hold the groundhog. "I'm like, ‘Don’t make me hold a f---ing groundhog.’ I mean, what the hell?" he recalled.
Former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio infamously dropped the groundhog during Groundhog Day ceremony in 2014. (YouTube/Screenshot)
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"I go there and it’s seven in the morning, which means my motor skills are not at their best. I put on these gloves, and they’re like, ‘Here’s a groundhog,’ I’m like, ‘What the f---?’ I’m like, ‘Don’t you have a little more coaching to go with this or whatever?’ It was idiocy," he ranted.
De Blasio continued to complain the whole situation was "insane." "Why would you want an elected official to hold a groundhog? I don’t know anything about holding groundhogs. So the whole thing is just insane. There’s an original sin here. Don’t hand someone a groundhog, right?" he joked.
The former mayor also spoke on a more serious level about regrets from his time in office and his political future.
New York Magazine pressed the Democrat to account for far-left critics' complaints he had taken the side of police over Black Lives Matter protesters in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd.
De Blasio defended himself, saying there was a "real danger on all sides" and police faced "organized" violence during protests that was "extraordinarily different" and difficult to address.
Demonstrators gather to protest the death of George Floyd in the Bronx borough of New York City on June 4, 2020. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
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"A lot of people in the media, a lot of people in the city saw the moment of the murder of George Floyd as a seminal moment for social change and legal change in America, and I agree. But the problem when you’re running a city is there’s more than one thing happening at once. And we were seeing this real threat to officers — tangible, documented. We were also seeing officers who were doing the wrong thing to protesters, not by any means most, but a small number," he argued.
De Blasio continued to claim some on the left weren't having an "honest discussion" about the violence from some protesters. He was criticized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in May 2020 for defending a video of New York City police apparently driving into a crowd of protesters.
"I don’t feel that there was an honest enough discussion about that scenario. If you look at that video, that very bad moment, I think we have to be honest and open that everyone could have done better. Because the typical protester was peaceful, wanted social change, and I agreed with them. But there was an element among the protesters that wanted confrontation with the police and worked very hard to have confrontation, including physical confrontation. There was an element among the police that were undisciplined and inappropriate," he said.
Police take measures as protesters gather at Bryant Park in New York City and march through the streets in memory of George Floyd on the first day of the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on March 8, 2021. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
However, the mayor argued that most protesters and police were nonviolent and did "the right thing."
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In the interview, De Blasio also commented on the exodus of "talent" from San Francisco and New York City to places like Miami and Austin, Texas. De Blasio brushed off this comment, saying New York had rapidly replaced the millionaires who left the city with "10,000" more, citing Office of Management and Budget statistics.
In 2022, Florida saw the biggest rush of new residents migrating from predominantly blue states with steep taxes, with about 319,000 Americans making the move there, according to data from the National Association of Realtors, Fox Business reported.
Nearly 65,000 New Yorkers transferred their driver's licenses to Florida last year.
However, the Democrat predicted people would leave Florida in droves because of Gov. Ron DeSantis' policies.
"I also have predicted very publicly that the Florida thing is about to boomerang, because DeSantis has created such a hostile environment that a lot of people going there are not going to want to stay there," he told the magazine.
Fox Business' Kristen Altus contributed to this report.