JUST IN: De Blasio Announces Run for Congress on Morning Joe

Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, announced on Friday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that he is running for Congress.

De Blasio had formed an exploratory committee ahead of the run.

De Blasio said that “people are hurting. They need help, they need help fast and they need leaders who could actually get them help now and know how to do it.”

He went on to say, “I do know how to do it from years of serving the people of this city and so today I’m declaring my candidacy for Congress in the 10th Congressional District of New York,” he said. “And I want to tell you what people need is exactly the kinds of things that I focused on before: money back in their pocket. We did that. We reduced income equality.”

Other accomplishments De Blasio listed his time as mayor included enacting universal pre-K, “having led this city out of the worst of the Covid crisis.”

“I’m ready right now to serve and address the issues that are so deep in communities in Brooklyn and Manhattan and I just wanted to come here, a place that I cherish and with you who’ve been such good friends to tell you this is the next step,” he said. “And I want to serve the people of the community that is my home and that I love.”

De Blasio served as mayor of New York City between 2014 and 2021 – a tenure that was unpopular on both sides of the political and ideological spectrum – and unsuccessfully ran for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president in which he dropped out in September 2019.

Watch above, via MSNBC.