“Where is Bill?” Mr. Lhota asked, as he raised his voice in frustration. “Call him out. Have him be asked questions. Make sure that its about the issues that are important for the citrus of the city of New York. Where’s his vision? Where’s his vision? Ask him questions. Where does he want to go?”
“I’ll go toe to toe with him and I’ll win on November 5th,” Mr. Lhota proclaimed, “because my ideas are significantly better than his and because nobody knows what [his ideas] are.”
Mr. Lhota also defended getting the support of David Koch, who has donated money to the tea party together with his brother. “I have received a check from David and Julia Koch to my campaign and as I’ve read in a newspaper that they are also part of an [independent expenditure], which I don’t know about,” he said. “It’s not the brothers. It’s one. It’s David. And David gave $81,000 to Andrew Cuomo and you didn’t ask him the same question. What you need to look at is who David Koch is. David Koch has spent an enormous amount of his own money philanthropically here in the City of New York. There are rooms in buildings named after him in this city, including over at Lincoln Center. He, like I, believes in a woman’s right to choose. He believes, as I do, in marriage equality. David Koch’s beliefs on social issues are no different than mine or my opponent’s when it comes to women’s choice and women’s issues and other issues like that. Tying me together with the Tea Party is just not gonna work. And if I’m tied to the Tea Party, so’s Andrew Cuomo. Ask him about the $81,000 he received from David and Julia Koch. It’s as simple as that.”
Finally, Kikar Hashabbat reported that Bill de Blassio attended a Satmar celebration last week, at the end of Simchat Torah, and met with both wings of the chassidic dynasty. It appears that one dynast is voting for him, the other for L’hota.
Yori Yanover contributed to this report.