De Blasio was discussing the 2024 presidential election on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer when he offered the comments, saying that problems such as inflation contributed to Biden dropping out of the race and his successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, losing the race.

“Let‘s be honest, we‘ve got to be more honest,” de Blasio said. “Part of what happened here is the American people were pissed off that they felt the Democratic Party was covering for Joe Biden. They were already upset with Joe Biden on a substantive level, not always fairly, but they were on things like inflation. And people are hurting.”

Biden’s presidency was plagued with problems, including verbal slip-ups, foreign policy blunders such as the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and inflation.

De Blasio also said that Biden serving one term “was right” and that Democrats, including himself, carry the blame for not saying more.

“I‘ll take my share of the blame,” he said. “I mean, I wanted to believe Joe Biden could make it through. He was a great president in many ways. I wanted to believe he could hang on, but it stood to reason that he should not continue as our candidate. It stood to reason that one term was right, and a lot of Democrats kind of kept their mouths shut. And I think people felt out in the country a little betrayed by that.”

The Democratic Party should take notes from President-elect Donald Trump going forward, de Blasio said.

“So this time, why don‘t we be the party of bluntness and authenticity?” he said. “Why don‘t we take, ironically, a page from Donald Trump‘s book and be a little blunter and a little less worried about diplomatic language? I think if we speak authentically to what people are going through and fight back, I actually think our prospects are pretty good in 2026, certainly to take back the House and then build from there.”