Ed Koch Unhappy With Obama: Report
Image by getty images
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch isn’t dumping President Obama — yet.
The 87-year-old Koch told New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin that he is very angry with Obama for snubbing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to the U.S.
“There should be a certain courtesy involved,” Koch said. “You don’t just say we can’t fit him into our schedule.”
Koch, who was recently hospitalized with anemia, said he is still backing Obama’s reelection campaign, but concedes that could change, too.
“I’m not off the bus yet, but I’m pissed and I’m going to harangue them,” he said.
The former mayor gave Obama a black eye when he helped elect Republican Bob Turner to a Queens-based Congressional seat after Anthony Weiner resigned in disgrace.
But the two seemed to have made nice after a White House meeting and Koch had vowed to go to Florida to rally Jewish senior citizens to get behind the president. He also denounced GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan for his plans to revamp Medicare.
Now Koch snippily says Obama spoke for two-thirds of their half-hour meeting. “I got 10 minutes,” he complained to the Post.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
