NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Republican mayoral hopeful Joe Lhota has tried to distance himself from the chaos in Washington, but that hasn’t stopped Bill de Blasio, his Democratic rival, from attacking the former deputy mayor over the federal government shutdown.
“You can’t be a Republican bystander,” de Blasio told WCBS 880’s Alex Silverman. “You can’t say, ‘I’m an innocent liberal Republican, and all those other things happened.’ Too bad. If you’re a member of the Republican Party, you’re buying into the whole idea.”
Lhota has said House Republicans are wrong for forcing the shutdown in an attempt to delay President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. He has called them “extremists” and accused them of holding “the government and the people of this country hostage.”
