Hillary Clinton shifted blame to New York City mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday for a racist comedy skit the pair performed this weekend in which they joked about “colored people’s time.”
“Well, look, it was Mayor de Blasio’s skit,” Clinton told Cosmopolitan in an interview. “He has addressed it, and I will really defer to him because it is something that he’s already talked about.”
Clinton and de Blasio have come under heavy criticism for taking part in the comedy routine, which was staged during a charity event held at the New York Hilton on Saturday.
Halfway through the set, in which de Blasio rapped and made a fool of himself, he introduced his “home girl, Hillary.”
“I just have to say thanks for the endorsement, Bill. Took you long enough,” Clinton said after taking stage. De Blasio, who managed Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, took some heat last year for waiting before endorsing her for president.
“Sorry Hillary, I was running on CP Time,” de Blasio said, eliciting groans from the audience. “CP Time” is a reference to “colored people’s time,” which plays off of the stereotype that black people are often late.
De Blasio said on Monday that critics were “missing the point” of the skit.
“It was clearly a staged show. It was a scripted show,” de Blasio said during an interview on CNN. “The whole idea was to do the counterintuitive by saying ‘cautious politician time.’ Every actor thought it was a joke on a different convention. That was the whole idea.”
It is not yet clear who wrote the skit or if the Clinton campaign reviewed it prior to the show.