Bloomberg said coordination among local and federal officials has been successful. Bloomberg: No 'diss' to Obama

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference Tuesday evening that he declined President Barack Obama’s offer to visit New York City in the midst of Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath, saying that a trip to New Jersey would suffice.

“I talked to the president today and I talked to his chief of staff [Jack Lew] today, particularly about a trip here. What I pointed out to him is that we would love to have him, but we‘ve got lots of things to do,” Bloomberg told reporters. “And I’m not trying to diss him, but I know he had planned a trip to New Jersey, and I said, ‘That’s fine. It represents the whole region; people understand the storm.’”


( PHOTOS: Pols take action on Sandy)

Bloomberg, who has remained neutral in the presidential race and made comments critical of both Obama and Mitt Romney, continued: “He has a lot of things to do. And I was flattered that he offered to come, but I think that the thing for him to do is go to New Jersey and represent the country.”

A White House official told POLITICO after Bloomberg’s press conference that the White House called Bloomberg to let him know “that we planned to travel to New Jersey and to ask if he concurred with our assessment that tomorrow would not be the right time to visit New York City.”

Obama is scheduled to travel to New Jersey Wednesday to survey the storm’s damage with the state’s Republican governor Chris Christie.

Bloomberg said the coordination between city, state and government officials has been successful in dealing with the storm.

( See also: Full coverage of Hurricane Sandy)

“You know there was a lot of criticism of FEMA back in the [Hurricane] Katrina days, and today you hear nothing but good things about FEMA, and they certainly have been very helpful to us, as has our working with [New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo],” Bloomberg said.

He added: “I think the coordination between the city, state and the federal government has been as good as anybody has ever seen. And we appreciate the help of all of them.”