hillary clinton stands with nyc mayor bill de blasio, center, and his wife, chirlane mccray, left. | ap photo/frank franklin ii by laura nahmias 10/12/16 01:01 pm edt even as he remained publicly neutral in the democratic presidential primary, mayor bill de blasio privately coordinated his support with hillary clinton<u+2019>s campaign, according to a new trove of hacked emails published by wikileaks. more than a month before he officially endorsed clinton<u+2019>s candidacy, de blasio wrote to the campaign to alert them of his plans to meet with bernie sanders, and let them know he would not be endorsing the progressive vermont senator. story continued below <u+201c>i accepted bernie sanders' request for a mtg today,<u+201d> de blasio wrote in a september 18 email, five weeks before he endorsed clinton. <u+201c>will try to keep it low-key but assume it will leak out. my message to him (saying this in confidence to you) is that i will always want to work with him in the future and will never have a bad word about him, but won't be supporting him in this campaign." at the time, de blasio was coming under increasing pressure for his decision not to endorse clinton<u+2019>s candidacy sooner. he conspicuously withheld his support for her on the day she officially announced, in april of 2015, drawing ire from clinton loyalists , and raising eyebrows among new york democrats, most of whom quickly fell in line behind the state's former senator. the email from de blasio also shows how he tried to secure clinton<u+2019>s participation in a bipartisan presidential forum that he had hoped to host through his nonprofit progressive agenda committee. the event, which was eventually scrapped due to a lack of interest from the candidates, was to be held in december 2015 in iowa, in advance of the caucuses there. <u+201c>i will ask [bernie sanders] (as i have you guys) to participate in our progressive agenda forum (not debate -- one candidate on stage at a time) in iowa re: income inequality,<u+201d> de blasio wrote to clinton<u+2019>s campaign in september 2015. <u+201c>but i quietly first want to see what date works for you guys before locking anything down.<u+201d> the clinton campaign was, and would remain noncommittal. <u+201c>thanks for the heads up. i got the forum into our sched folks,<u+201d> replied clinton's campaign manager, robby mook. clinton never agreed to attend the forum, and neither did any of the other presidential candidates, of either party. the forum was eventually canceled, shortly after de blasio endorsed clinton<u+2019>s candidacy, in late october. de blasio also notified the campaign that he would praise clinton in a planned appearance on abc<u+2019>s this week, with george stephanopoulos, offering the campaign a series of bullet point about what he planned to say on the program. "shockingly, george insists on talking about the presidential horse race," de blasio wrote to mook and podesta. "therefore i will: "have lots of praise for hillary and her increasingly clear, strong agenda. "will say her campaign is doing much better than the conventional wisdom recognizes. "will praise bernie's ideas if asked. "if asked about mtg with him, i'll say i look forward to talking to hillary soon as well and that i've been in regular touch with her team. "if asked about biden, i will repeat no need for another candidate. "if asked what's holding me up on hillary, i'll allude to the progressive agenda and a few areas where i'm seeking clarification. "in general, will be positive/optimistic. if you have any concerns or ideas or needs, just let me know.<u+201d> in the appearance , stephanopoulos asked how de blasio planned to decide between the democratic candidates. "it's like any other endorsement decision <u+2014> look at the vision, look at the facts, look at the capacity," de blasio said, adding there were "a few more areas i want [clinton] to flesh out in her vision. de blasio, after endorsing clinton, later volunteered his thoughts about her performance during a primary debate in march of 2016. "hillary was fantastic on the gun control answer, then totally blew the mass incarceration question," de blasio wrote to podesta. "why on earth did she say 'are you going to ask senator sanders that question?' instead of just addressing the issue. when she makes it about her, she loses the high ground. stating the obvious, i know, but she keeps doing it..." "very fair," podesta replied. "she's better in her speeches but reverts in this format." the exchanges were included in a trove of emails hacked from the account of clinton campaign chairman john podesta. the campaign has not disputed the authenticity of the emails, but podesta has accused russian intelligence agencies of perpetrating the hack on behalf of donald trump. a spokesman for de blasio declined to comment. a spokesperson for the clinton campaign said wikileaks was acting as "propaganda arm of the kremlin with a political agenda doing putin's dirty work to help elect donald trump." a free synopsis of our pro morning email about new york education policy and politics a free synopsis of our pro morning email about new york energy policy and politics a free synopsis of our pro morning email about new york health care policy and politics a free synopsis of our pro morning email about new york real estate policy and politics our morning email with must-read analysis and breaking news on state news and politics a morning email with must-read analysis and breaking news on city news and politics. a weekly round-up of legislation in city council for politics and policy professionals. a reported briefing on money in politics, executive moves, and trends in communications, lobbying and consulting. our twice-a-week digest of news on courts and the law in new york azi paybarah and jimmy vielkind's must-read briefing informing the daily conversation among knowledgeable new yorkers.
de blasio coordinated praise with clinton campaign prior to endorsement, hacked emails show
laura nahmias