Sunday on MSNBC, presidential hopeful and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was running for president because the people he talks to in Iowa and South Carolina wanted a “New Yorker running the biggest, toughest city in the country” to take on President Donald Trump.

De Blasio said, “I’m hearing from people all over the country is they want a candidate tough enough to take on Donald Trump. I’m a New Yorker. I know Trump. I know his tricks. I know his strategies. I know how to go at him. I came out of the gate and gave him the nickname Con Don. That immediately got under his skin. He countered with a tweet. He countered with a video. I countered with another video going back and forth. You can tell this guy is a bully that needs to be confronted, and as a New Yorker, I know how to do that.”

He continued, “A lot of people I talked to in Iowa and South Carolina, they get that point, they want someone tough enough to go toe to toe with this guy. Who better than a fellow New Yorker running the biggest, toughest city in the country to take on Trump?”

He added, “What I hear from my fellow Democrats is they want to see a fight. They are sick of the Democratic party not standing up for working people and not fighting for everyday Americans. Too many people came to feel the Democratic party was the party of the elite and not willing to take on the tough fight. I’m simply making a clear message from the gate. The guy is a con man, that’s well-known. Let’s call it like we see it. Let’s go right at him. We can come at him, and we can do a substantive campaign at the same time.”

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