Mayor de Blasio on Friday blamed his tumbling approval ratings on “relentless negative headlines” — and not the seven corruption and fund-raising scandals swirling around his administration.
“I think it is telling that those numbers were very, very strong for two full years, and then there’s relentless negative headlines,” de Blasio said in an interview with WNYC radio, referring to slumping approval ratings in a recent Quinnipiac University poll.
The poll also found that only 43 percent of voters believe the mayor is honest and trustworthy — down from 60 percent in January.
“Of course people are going to be influenced by them [negative headlines] in the short term,” de Blasio said.
“I’ve told you, when everything comes to light, we have done everything appropriately, legally,” he continued.
“And then I think the public will look at that and in fact say — OK, there were a lot of allegations thrown at this guy, but in the end there was nothing there.”
Last week, de Blasio earned scorn by announcing that his emails and other communications with five non-government advisers would be shielded from public scrutiny, even though the advisers represent clients with business before the city.
In past months, de Blasio and his administration have been revealed to be the subject of multiple state and federal investigations.
Those include an FBI probe into allegations of favors-for-gifts corruption in the NYPD, plus a federal and state probe into whether the mayor granted special access or favors in exchange for campaign donations to Democrats in 2014 state Senate races.
Additionally, the feds are probing whether the mayor benefited from straw donors in 2013.
“I think the mayor’s image has suffered from negative headlines,” agreed longtime Democratic political consultant George Arzt.
“But the investigations that are surrounding him are the cause of those headlines.”
Better to blame Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara and state probers rather than the media, Arzt said.
The ink-irked mayor complained about his press again later Friday, during a WOR radio interview.
De Blasio said negative stories have been “very distracting” lately, but have not prevented him from doing his job.
Besides, he said, people don’t care about all those pesky probes.
“They don’t care about allegations; they care about whether you get things done for them,” he said.
After talking about crime going down and putting 2,000 more cops on the street the past year, he added with a laugh, “A lot of good stuff happening . . . How does it not make the front pages? I am shocked, shocked.”