Newark, Oct 19 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Newark Mayor Cory Booker and the NBC’s “Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien buried their hatchet on the show with lots of jokes and bonhomie.

A facetious feud had been going on between them that began Sept. 23 with the host O’Brien joking that Booker’s new health care program consisted of a bus ticket out of Newark, which is just west of New York City and is often scarred by violence. The mayor Cory Booker responded, in kind with a humorous video on YouTube in which he banned O’Brien from Newark Liberty International Airport.

“Many jokes are made about Newark by comedians,” O’Brien said on Friday’s show. “You honed in on me like a cruise missile. Why me, Mayor Booker?”

“When there’s a herd going after you, you have to sort of look at the weakest gazelle,” Booker joked.

Booker is making a conscious effort to fashion a national blueprint for urban transformation in Newark, which has been synonyms with urban decay. For this endeavor he has been appreciated and he also got a $100,000 donation to his Newark Now charity from O’Brien and NBC.

Cory Booker is the first Newark mayor to appear on the “Tonight Show” and also the first to garner positive national attention for the city, said Steve Adubato, a local political power broker who allied himself with Booker this year after a lengthy rivalry.

“The only time a Newark mayor made national headlines before Cory Booker was when they were indicted or went to jail,” Adubato said.