Rudy Giuliani says Tucson native running NYC schools 'belongs in Cuba'

Apparently referring to Mayor Bill de Blasio, Giuliani said "He has a chancellor that belongs in Cuba, running their school system. Maybe he should go back to Cuba, which is where he had his honeymoon."

The "he" references in Giuliani's comments were confusing, but Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife honeymooned in Cuba.

Carranza was born and raised in Tucson, the grandson of Mexican immigrants. He  graduated from Pueblo High School as well as the University of Arizona. He led school districts in the Las Vegas area, San Francisco and Houston before being named chancellor of New York City public schools in 2018.

He has taken heavy criticism over his handling of the COVID-19 crisis, from the school closures in March to the attempt at a "blended" re-opening of schools this month.

A sympathetic writer in the online Gotham Gazette opined, in a piece headed "The Schools Chancellor Must Step Up or Step Aside," that "We need a new Chancellor who will stand up to the Mayor, demonstrating managerial decisiveness and instructional vision."

The conservative New York Post editorialized that Carranza "has no real talent for anything except incendiary race games" in an editorial headlined, "COVID-19 has exposed Chancellor Richard Carranza’s utter incompetence."

But the press came to Carranza's defense after Giuliani's attack, which a New York Daily News headline referred to as "Insane and racist."

Photo gallery: Back-to-school in Tucson during the pandemic