'He says what he believes,' Bloomberg (left) said of Biden. Bloomberg: Biden's got 'balls'

Rupert Murdoch should encourage Fox News to focus on immigration reform. President Obama should be on notice that he’ll face tougher criticism in the coming months. And Joe Biden has “a set of balls.”

( PHOTOS: An interview with Bloomberg)


So pronounced New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a free-ranging POLITICO interview in his bullpen-style office at City Hall recently. He held forth on his efforts to move the dial on guns, immigration and gay marriage — an issue on which he lavished praise, in his unique rhetorical way, on the vice president.

“You know, Joe Biden — you can joke about him all you want, [but] he’s got a set of balls, and he says what he believes,” Bloomberg said. “And he forced the focus [on gay marriage].”

(PHOTOS: Joe Biden’s first term: A BFD)

He added sardonically: “I’m sure the president was evolving and was about to do it anyways. But Biden deserves the credit. He should be the hero of the pro-gay marriage community.”

It was high praise from Bloomberg, who’s never been one to feign political politesse.

He also said Obama should have dealt with gay marriage during his first year in office, instead of waiting.

“I’m a big believer in, you need time to fix it or let the public become convinced it’s a good idea, or to cancel it and get over the damage before your next election,” he said. “If you wait, it invariably comes up at the wrong time, aka gay marriage. Would have been better off [doing it on] Day One.”

( Also on POLITICO: Bloomberg's Washington footprint explodes)

The billionaire businessman-turned-politician is finishing his final year in office, after a maneuver to extend term limits so he could run again in 2009 angered voters – but not enough to throw him out of office.

Over the past two years, Bloomberg has become more engaged in issues with national impact and expanded an already-full portfolio but that also relate to some of New York City’s more pressing concerns. Gun control tops the list.

“The question, really, is has the public changed its views and will they keep focused? We have a very short attention span in America,” Bloomberg said of the focus on guns in the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre.

He added, “At the moment, I think there is still a focus on the … big splashy massacres, as opposed to the day in and day out carnage that takes place across the country. And only if the public stays motivated and interested will you change Washington.”

He described the “little PAC” he created and seeded with $10 million and used in large measure to back candidates who were opposed by the National Rifle Association.

“You’ve got to convince the Congress people and the senators that they don’t have to automatically vote with the NRA, he said. “And the way to do that is to get the public to say, ‘Look, I’m going to vote for your opponent unless you do something to keep my kids safe.’”

Bloomberg added that he doesn’t “let the Democrats off the hook,” faulting Obama for doing “nothing” to advance legislation to ban assault weapons, despite his promise to do so during his 2008 campaign.

“They’re as petrified as the Republicans,” said Bloomberg, whose aides recently met with Obama campaign manager Jim Messina at city hall to coordinate on a political strategy to pursue gun control.

He added, “The real focus right now is to marshal the big guns, if you will, and have them start focusing on individual people in Congress. And the mission is simply to convince them that the NRA does not control their future, their career — quite the contrary, the NRA may be detrimental to their reelection. Or keeping their party involved.”

Bloomberg has become the poster boy for national gun control, and with that has come condemnation from the National Rifle Association. Even as he and others, including Bill Clinton, made a push for new laws immediately after the Sandy Hook shootings, the former president also cautioned members of his party not to look down their noses at gun culture.

Asked about that comment, Bloomberg paused and said, “You know, there is a political dynamic to everything. I put things in the context of, ‘Congressman or senator, let me ask you this, you have two choices: save lives or get reelected, for the record, and the country is watching. Which do you care about?’ Now we all know what they would say, and then they would do something different I assume.

“You know, I didn’t see Clinton’s thing, and Clinton — I think he’s been OK on guns. More than OK actually,” he added. “I mean, he’s right. … I don’t know whether it [Clinton’s remark] was in the context of, ‘Don’t be arrogant, listen to people.’ Keep in mind, we’re not proposing to do anything that detrimental to most gun owners. You can still have your guns. You know, maybe not assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, but I don’t know what they hell you need them for anyway. But if you want to go hunting, you want to target shoot, you want to protect your family, I don’t have a problem with that any more than I have a problem with smoking.”

On immigration, an issue where Bloomberg has partnered with Murdoch from a pro-business standpoint on a reform package, the mayor said he found the Australian mogul a natural fit for such an effort.

“[He’s] a logical guy to do it given he’s an immigrant and he’s got a big international company,” he said. “And he’s been useful. I mean, the real thing is if he could get Fox to, you know, be the big champion, which sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.”

Still, he said he’s been in discussions with some Republican lawmakers, such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who has become a champion of some form of reform package within the GOP.

“He’s called me, I’ve called him,” Bloomberg said. “I said to Rubio, ‘We should, you know, I wanted him to spearhead a push for the U.S. government to open trade with Cuba. The idea was to get rid of Fidel Castro. The strategy was we would boycott him out of existence.”

Bloomberg’s diagnosis of the Republican party’s ills was blunt and in line with criticisms that many have made since the November 2012 election.

“Republicans will never control the Senate and probably will lose the House unless they appeal to Latinos, Asians, immigration kind of things,” he said.

“There’s nothing wrong with being fiscally responsible,” Bloomberg added, but it should stop being “so strident” on social issues.

“The public still is in favor of Roe v. Wade, still thinks that it’s not the government’s job to be in your bedroom. Not everybody, but more and more,” he said.

Yet Bloomberg, who seriously explored running as an independent in 2008, insisted the Republicans can still win the presidency despite their current demographic challenges.

He faulted Sarah Palin for damaging John McCain in 2008.

“There’s a very big group in the middle that could go either way, and if McCain had a different vice presidential candidate, he might have won,” Bloomberg said. “If Romney was a better candidate and didn’t have to endure a year of a circular firing squad, he might have won.”

Still, despite his endorsement of Obama — which the White House was grateful for and which was tethered to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, in the final week of the election — Bloomberg has warned the president that he will speak out when the mayor believes Obama is wrong.

“I’ve told him I’m going to be more critical after I endorsed him,” Bloomberg said of Obama, who has never been a natural political ally and who he has privately criticized since 2008. Bloomberg added he has a “right to expect” Obama to live up to his campaign promises.

Bloomberg was less clear about what his future plans are in the political arena.

“I have no idea,” he said, when asked about rumors he could spend upward of $50 million pressing for gun control legislation in the coming year.

He stuck to one endorsement — former Sen. Scott Brown, who is weighing another campaign, and who Bloomberg hosted a fundraiser for last year and supported over newly minted Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

But he said he sees the need to be judicious in the races he gets involved in.

“If you’ve got only one person running or both people are so right-wing that, you know, there’s no hope,” he said, “don’t waste your money.”