Curtis Sliwa says de Blasio won’t hire more cops because he’s a ‘police hater’

Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa on Thursday accused Mayor Bill de Blasio of refusing to beef up the NYPD because he’s a “police hater” — as Hizzoner claimed that President Biden was referring to other cities when he authorized the use of COVID-19 funds to hire more cops.

During a news conference outside One Police Plaza, Sliwa blasted the new, $98.7 billion city budget, which, as The Post reported Wednesday, added just $200 million to the NYPD budget for overtime and IT after $1 billion was slashed last year amid calls to “defund the police.”

“You now have almost a billion-dollar budget — more than most countries — and you still won’t re-fund the police!” Sliwa said.

“Which means you’re a police hater! There is no doubt about it.”

Sliwa added: “The reality is we need more police, we need to hire more police. We need to take the handcuffs off the police and put it on the criminals.”

Earlier, de Blasio defended his decision not to fight surging crime by hiring more cops with some of the $6 billion the city got from Biden’s “American Rescue Plan,” even though the president OK’d such a move last week.

“He specified that to certain cities that were dealing with challenges that are greater than ours,” de Blasio said when asked by The Post during a City Hall news conference.

“What we did here was strike a balance. We had a lot of different needs to make sure we could bring the city back. We had to think about jobs, we had to think about bringing back schools.”

De Blasio added: “Obviously. the focus on fighting COVID — once and for all, get rid of it for our city — and of course, public safety — a lot of investments in community-based solutions and keeping the NYPD at a strong level. I think we really struck a balance here in this budget.”