New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) is wading into the pizza topping wars.
The New York mayor spent several minutes at a press briefing on Thursday ranking his favorite pizza toppings, looking to demonstrate how ranked choice voting works ahead of the city's upcoming mayoral election. Coming in at number one? Green peppers.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From there, de Blasio ranked olives at number two, a take he acknowledged may be "a little controversial," but "I have had very good experiences with olives," the mayor said. The next picks were sausage and mushrooms — he mused that the latter is "often maligned" and "misunderstood" — and, finally, down at number five, peperoni. One topping, though, de Blasio refused to even rank.
"Pineapple does not belong on pizza!" he shouted. "We're not in California, okay! This is sacrilegious in Italy to put pineapple on a pizza."
The mayor, who's no stranger to pizza-related criticism, quickly sparked an extremely important online debate on the subject, generating plenty of raised eyebrows with his ranking — though not as much disagreement over his anti-pineapple stance.
Assuming these critics aren't already busy lobbying for impeachment proceedings due to these alleged pizza crimes, they can weigh in online with a sample ballot, and de Blasio urged all New Yorkers to make their voice heard by submitting their own pizza rankings. Not only would this help serve as practice for the election, but, de Blasio declared, "I think this is going to be an important moment to clarify what New Yorkers really want for the future of pizza in this city."
-
Margaret Atwood’s ‘deliciously naughty’ memoirIn the Spotlight ‘Bean-spilling’ book by The Handmaid’s Tale author is ‘immensely readable’
-
Being a school crossing guard has become a deadly jobUnder the Radar At least 230 crossing guards have been hit by cars over the last decade
-
Crossword: November 4, 2025The Week's daily crossword
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
-
Trump demands millions from his administrationSpeed Read The president has requested $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for previous federal investigations
