Uber's New York general manager Josh Mohrer thinks Mayor Bill de Blasio's move to cap the car service is unrelated to a city-wide congestion problem, he told HuffPost Live on Monday.
"It seems to me that the mayor's second biggest donor -- which is the taxi industry -- has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars, and [now] he's paying them back," Mohrer told host Marc Lamont Hill.
"Starting the discussion saying, 'We need to do a congestion study so we're gonna cap Uber,' but then say, 'Well, actually, it's not about congestion -- it's about all these other things' -- I would love to sit down with the mayor and talk about them," he added.
The response comes on the heels of de Blasio announcing a plan to limit the popular app's number of drivers along with other for-hire car services. What began as general congestion concerns spiraled into a close examination of Uber's labor and pricing, as voiced by Mayor de Blasio in a recent New York Daily News op-ed.
"It seems to me like he had an idea to cap Uber's growth and that was the answer," Mohrer said. "Now he's searching for what the question is."
Uber has challenged de Blasio to a live-streamed debate about the issue, but the mayor declined on Monday, saying he does "not debate with heads of private companies over their own self-interest."
Watch more from Mohrer's rebuttal to de Blasio in the HuffPost Live clip above.
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