Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Bill De Blasio Can’t Name Single City Where Free Buses Work After Insisting They Are Effective

[Screenshot/MSNBC]

Former Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio could not name a single city where free busing works after insisting on Tuesday that they have “proven” to be effective.

De Blasio endorsed Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani and his idea to have government-run buses be available across the nation’s largest city. While insisting that these government-run buses have been “proven” to work, de Blasio told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough that he would get back to him on specific examples.

“The bottomline here is, think about the free buses again. Free buses have been proven to work in many parts of the country,” de Blasio said.

“Where?” Scarborough asked.

“I’ll get you a list of cities,” de Blasio replied.

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Critics of free busing cite a loss in revenue for transit agencies, homeless people using the buses as shelter and overcrowding as reasons to oppose the policy. Between 2020 and 2023, bus drivers in Tucson, Arizona, reported a sharp rise in assaults and lawlessness on free-fare transits.

Along with free buses, Mamdani has promised a long list of socialist policies including government-run grocery stores, rent freezes and raising the minimum wage to $30. in July, he defended his plan to tax “richer and whiter neighborhoods” throughout the city as it is supposedly about fairness in the property tax system.

“It is not driven by race. It’s more of an assessment of what neighborhoods are being under taxed versus over taxed,” Mamdani said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “The focus here is to actually ensure a fair property tax system.”

Mamdani has made several statements condemning the police and has repeatedly called on the New York Police Department (NYPD) to be defunded, though he has since backtracked from some of his previous statements by saying he is “not running to defund the police.” Despite this past rhetoric, de Blasio argued on Fox News’ “Hannity” that Mamdani will keep New Yorkers “safe.”

The mayoral nominee has also refused to denounce the term “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea,” which led to scrutiny by Jewish advocacy groups and pro-Israel activists. Conservative artist Scott LoBaido confronted Mamdani outside of a Staten Island restaurant and called him a “Jew-hating piece of shit” on Aug. 14.