Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani criticized the public safety policies of Bill de Blasio Tuesday, saying the Democratic mayoral front-runner subscribes to an “anti-police ideology,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Following a breakfast speech
on security in Manhattan, Mr. Giuliani delivered some of his sharpest words yet on Mr. de Blasio, in an interview with the WSJ.

“I think it comes more from this very left-wing ideology, which is an anti-police ideology,” he said of Mr. de Blasio’s proposal to reform stop and frisk. “I mean, this guy’s been arrested a number of times. … Most of it shows an anti-establishment attitude, which means anti-police. This is a tough guy for the cops to say, ‘This guy’s got our back.'”

On the other hand, Joe Lhota’s commitment had been demonstrated when he nearly died after being trapped in a building during the Sept. 11 attacks, mayor Giuliani noted. “This guy really knows what he’s doing,” he said. “He’s probably the best qualified person to be mayor that we’ve run, and I would include me, not being as qualified when I ran, or even Mike (Bloomberg) who had his business experience but didn’t have the government experience that Joe has.”

Dan Levitan, a spokesman for Mr. de Blasio, said in a statement: “It’s more of the same old right wing fear-mongering from Joe Lhota’s number one supporter. There’s no contradiction between being pro-police and pro-community, something Rudy Giuliani never learned.”

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)