Ex-de Blasio aide blasts him as 'annoyingly condescending,' said she was 'terrified' he could run NYC: Book

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A Democratic political strategist and former aide to Democratic House candidate Bill de Blasio blasted the former New York City mayor as "childish," "intellectually lazy," and "annoyingly condescending" in her new memoir released Tuesday.

Lis Smith, who served as senior communications director for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign, released her new book, "Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story," which details her affair with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and her stint as a spokesperson for de Blasio’s 2013 mayoral campaign.

Smith recounted her first job interview with de Blasio, who is now running for an open congressional seat in a new district, saying he appeared hopelessly unqualified to lead.

"It was just off from the second he sat down," she wrote. "Over the next hour, it slowly dawned on me that the likely incoming mayor of New York was childish, intellectually lazy, overconfident in his own abilities, and annoyingly condescending. De Blasio reminded me of the gross, unshowered guy in college who showed up to Philosophy 101 and hogged ten minutes of class time to yell about the necessity of seizing the means of production because he’d read one line of a Communism for Dummies book."

Former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio in City Hall Park in Manhattan on Monday, July 11, 2022. (Chris Sommerfeldt/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

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"After we parted ways, I was shaken," she continued. "I called my mom and a couple of friends on the cab ride back to Manhattan. I told them the truth: I had completely blown the interview, and I was terrified that someone like de Blasio could be tasked with running New York City in the middle of a crisis. ‘This guy can’t handle a 9/11.’"

Smith said that despite her doubts, she was offered the job and went on to work for de Blasio for the purpose of furthering her own political ambitions.

"I wanted to be the next New York City Hall press secretary and didn’t care if I respected de Blasio or not," she wrote. 

Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg's spokesperson Lis Smith speaks to the press in the Spin Room after participating in the second Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season hosted by NBC News at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida, June 27, 2019.  (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

After de Blasio won the election, Smith said she was offered a job as chief spokesperson for the mayoral transition, but her affair with then-married Spitzer created a tabloid firestorm, and the offer was rescinded two days before de Blasio was sworn in as mayor.

"The incoming mayor with whom I’d spent countless days and hours deputized one of his top advisers to call and deliver the news that my offer to work for him was rescinded," she wrote. "The adviser consoled me as I dissolved into predictable tears. ‘Trust me, Lis,’ he assured me. ‘One day you’ll see this as a good thing. You don’t actually want to work for this guy.’"

"He was right, in retrospect. I learned an important lesson in the hardest way possible: nothing, not even burning ambition, could justify working for a politician with no integrity," she added.

Former Mayor de Blasio protests the Supreme Court's ruling with New York City residents. (Peter Gerber/Fox News Digital)

De Blasio's campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

Smith, who served as spokesperson for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his 2014 reelection bid, made headlines last year after she appeared in a series of text messages made public by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who conducted an investigation into Cuomo and his staff. 

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Smith was documented referring to Christine Blasey Ford as "looney tunes" and speaking dismissively about the #MeToo movement in 2021. During her testimony, she said she helped Cuomo formulate his public defense against multiple sexual harassment allegations.