NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg canceled his weekly Friday morning (9/2) radio appearance on WOR-AM, likely over a growing outcry over his handling of a top aide’s arrest over a domestic violence complaint, reported the NY Times.
The move appeared to be an attempt to avoid questions about why sought to conceal the arrest of Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith. When Goldsmith resigned several weeks ago, the mayor’s office said he was leaving to pursue a job in private business. Goldsmith actually stepped down because of the arrest, which stemmed from an altercation with his wife, Margaret that involved screaming and shoving at their town house in Washington.
WOR host, John Gambling, is not known for posing particularly tough questions to the mayor on the show that starts at 8AM. In Bloomberg’s absence, Gambling spent 12 minutes discussing the controversy on his program, and said he thought the mayor was making a mistake by not explaining his actions.
“I do think that the mayor has made a mistake because he’s going to have to answer the question,” Gambling said. “There’s no way out of it at this point. There’s no way out of it, because now it has turned into a megillah, and every reporter in New York City is after him for an answer, or a confrontation…Did he really believe that this story would not come out? I mean it was a public record…Don’t try and cover things up, because you’re always going to get caught eventually,” and he said that Bloomberg, at this point, has “got to come clean.”
Friday is the second day in a row where Bloomberg has scheduled no public events where reporters might have an opportunity to ask him questions. Several of the city’s lawmakers have rebuked the mayor for offering a misleading explanation for why Goldsmith departed, especially given the mayor’s longstanding advocacy for transparency in government.
“New Yorkers have a right to know when the second-most powerful man in city government is sitting in a D.C. jail cell,” a NY Post editorial said. “It’s utterly inexplicable that no announcement of the arrest was made — and even yesterday the mayor’s office was refusing substantive comment. Not good enough. Mr. Mayor. Explain yourself.”
