De Blasio impostor tricks newspaper into running anti-Mamdani quotes

[Zorro]

The Times of London apologized and said someone duped its reporter by claiming to be former New York mayor Bill de Blasio and criticizing Zohran Mamdani.

A British newspaper of record deleted an article — billed as an exclusive interview with former New York mayor Bill de Blasio criticizing Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy for the mayoralty — after learning that the quotes were fabricated by a trickster.

The article, which published Tuesday in the Times of London, cited de Blasio — one of the first high-profile Democratic figures to endorse Mamdani — as saying he lauded the candidate for his “admirable” ambition but that his economic policies were unworkable, suggesting de Blasio was distancing himself from the socialist after deeper consideration. It was headlined: “Zohran Mamdani ally Bill de Blasio says his policies ‘don’t add up.’”

About 90 minutes after it was published, de Blasio said the article was “entirely false and fabricated.” As of Wednesday, the article’s link shows an error message instead of the piece.

“I never spoke to that reporter and never said those things. Those quotes aren’t mine, don’t reflect my views,” de Blasio wrote in a post on X. “The truth is I fully support [Zohran Mamdani] and believe his vision is both necessary and achievable,” he added.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/10/29/de-blasio-mamdani-times-london/

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. First excuse from The Times turns out to be a lie - they contacted the wrong DeBlasio

"our reporter had been misled by an individual falsely claiming to be the former New York mayor."

https://www.semafor.com/article/10/29/2025/times-london-zohran-mamdani-new-york

Reality:

He is, instead, a 59-year-old Long Island wine importer named Bill DeBlasio, who merely responded to an email from a journalist seeking his views on Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s policies.
...
“I never once said I was the mayor. He never addressed me as the mayor,” DeBlasio told Semafor. “So I just gave him my opinion.”

The episode began earlier this week when a reporter for the quality British newspaper, Bevan Hurley, sent a polite email to an email address containing the full name belonging both to the wine seller and the two-term New York mayor, who spells “de” with a lowercase “d” and inserts a space between the two parts of his surname. (In DeBlasio’s view, “low-class Italians use a little d.“)
...
DeBlasio understood the situation. “I could have corrected him,” he said. Instead, he played along. He used ChatGPT to compose a response criticizing Mamdani’s tax plans, in particular, as unlikely to raise the requisite revenue.

https://www.semafor.com/article/10/29/2025/british-newspaper-spoke-to-the-wrong-deblasio-not-an-imposter