Metro

Mayor’s radio co-host says Bloomberg ‘made mistake’ in ducking questions about deputy’s resignation

Radio host John Gambling — who almost always agrees with his on-air pal Mayor Bloomberg — declared today that the mayor is making a mistake by ducking questions about the resignation of former Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith.

“The mayor is going to have to answer the question. There’s no way out of it,” Gambling said on WOR radio, where the mayor shares a one-hour time slot as Gambling’s co-cost every Friday morning.

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Bloomberg skipped out on the program today as part of the City Hall lock-down following The Post’s revelation that Goldsmith resigned suddenly on Aug. 4 following his arrest in Washington, D.C. on July 30 as a result of a late-night domestic dispute and not, as the official press release claimed, to pursue other ventures.

Gambling said that had the mayor shown up, “I would have said, ‘What happened? What’s the story?’… I think he made a mistake by not confronting it head on.”

It wasn’t clear where Bloomberg was hiding today.

At his Upper East Side mansion, his gal pal, Diana Taylor, left this morning to head to visit her parents, and was asked if the mayor was still inside.

Taylor said she didn’t know.

“It’s a big house,” Taylor said, with a smile on her face.

Bloomberg also was nowhere to be seen at City Hall today.

In a scathing letter this afternoon, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio said Bloomberg needs to apologize to New Yorkers for not being forthcoming about Goldsmith’s resignation.

“Your decision to mislead the public and key figures of your own administration — including NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly — about the circumstances leading to Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith’s resignation is unacceptable,” he wrote. “Given the revelations over the past 48 hours, the people of New York City deserve your apology and a thorough accounting.

“Your claim that [Goldsmith] was ‘leaving to pursue private-sector opportunities in infrastructure finance’ was a misrepresentation of the facts. While I recognize that both Mr. Goldsmith, and particularly his wife, are entitled to some level of privacy, I cannot accept the leader of the City of New York lying to its citizens.”

Instead of coming clean on why he had kept his mouth shut last month, Bloomberg ran for cover Thursday, spending the day ducking reporters who wanted to ask about The Post’s bombshell revelation that Goldsmith was done in by his temper, not by his poor performance during the Christmas blizzard.

Last night, Bloomberg abruptly canceled an event on the Circle Line with a German-American friendship group, where an organizer announced the mayor would be absent because of an “emergency.”

“I am deeply troubled by the news that one of the mayor’s highest-ranking aides resigned weeks ago after being arrested in a reported domestic violence incident, and spent two nights in jail — but we are only learning this today, in a belated newspaper account,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

“The mayor and his staff should give a full accounting of what they knew and when they knew it,” he said. ” ‘No comment’ is not an acceptable response.”

Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a Bloomberg ally and expected recipient of his endorsement to succeed him, said, “Facts relevant to [Goldsmith’s] termination should be made public.”

City Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn), who led hearings into the botched snow-removal effort said, “They protect their own. They protected [short-tenured Schools Chancellor] Cathie Black, and they’ll protect Goldsmith.”

A Washington police report said Goldsmith went ballistic in his Georgetown home July 30 after his wife, Margaret — first-cousin to ex-Vice President Dan Quayle — barked, “I should have put a bullet through you years ago!”

Goldsmith, 64, then allegedly shoved the lupus-afflicted newspaper heiress into a kitchen counter and smashed a phone when she said, “You’re not going to do this to me again. I’m calling the police.”

He allegedly grabbed Margaret, 59, as she tried to call cops on another phone.

The police chronology says Margaret, who called cops after breaking free, “was assaulted.”

Goldsmith was released from jail Aug. 1, and prosecutors dropped the case when his wife said she didn’t want to press charges.

Both Goldsmiths on Wednesday revealed that Stephen resigned Aug. 4 because he did not want his arrest to become “a distraction.”

In an interview today with The Indianapolis Star, Margaret Goldsmith said she called police after an argument over a “very personal and family-related matter.”

“I wanted Steve to leave the house and I was too tired to deal with it by myself,” she said. “Neither one of us had slept in two nights. Judgment is clouded when exhaustion sets in.”

After Goldsmith’s resignation, the couple went on a two-week cruise to the British Isles and France, Margaret Goldsmith said.

“It is not exactly a place two people would go for two weeks with serious issues,” she said.