A furious Mayor Bloomberg demanded today that the Port Authority help fund the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, declaring: “We have to bail out America.”

The mayor was reponding to the continuing battle between the bi-state agency and developer Larry Silverstein over how to split the massive construction costs.

Told that Port Authroity executive director Chris Ward was intent on not using public funds to bail out Silverstein, the mayor responded:

“The Port Authority is not bailing out Silverstein. We have to bail out America. That’s an outrageous statement.”

Ward warned that the Port has competing needs and isn’t about to subsidize a private developer.

“What we’re not willing to do is a complete public bailout of private infrastructure downtown,” he said.

“We need to restore downtown. We’re putting up the money to make downtown happen. There’s no reason why construction should be delayed.”

An arbitration panel has given both sides until Friday to come up with a deal under the threat of imposing its own terms.