Democratic NYC mayoral nominee says AOC's Tax the Rich dress sent the wrong ...

The Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City said that he thought Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's now infamous Tax the Rich dress sent the wrong message to the city's business community, which pay most of the city's budget.

In an interview with CNBC on Monday, Eric Adams doubled down on his promise to improve relations with New York City's business community, noting that he disagreed with AOC's stance of taxing the wealthy residents - which was written in large red letters on the back of her dress for the Met Gala last week.

'I'm a big believer that, you know, I think AOC and I believe we both want the same things, we just have different pathways to get there,' he told Squawk Box co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin, adding: 'Her mother was a domestic worker, or did things on that level, [and] so was my mother.

'But when you talk about just blanketly saying tax [the] rich in this city, we may have 8.8 million people, but 65,000 pay 51 percent of our income taxes,' Adams continued. 'And if you say to those 65,000 to leave, then we're not going to have the firefighters, the teachers - all of those basic things.'

Instead, he said, the city should first look to reduce spending in the city's budget, and then assess whether taxes should be raised to bring in more cash.

'Let's find a way to use the tax dollars,' he said, 'we're wasting tax dollars.'

'I say let's make sure we get our house in order through our agencies, and then let's talk about how much money we need to run this city's $98 billion budget.

'And how much of that are we hemorrhaging?'

" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0"

The interview comes as Adams, widely considered the next likely mayor, tries to distance himself from current

read more from dailymail.....