Bill de Blasio on Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk comments: He's out of touch with his city
Former Democratic presidential candidate and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio reacts to former Mayor Bloomberg's controversial comments about the policy, weighs in on the current 2020 Democratic field.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared on "Hannity" Wednesday and ripped his predecessor and current Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg over his controversial comments defending the police practice of "stop and frisk."
In a recently resurfaced 2015 speech to the Aspen Institute, Bloomberg acknowledged that "stop and frisk" targeted minority "kids" whom cops had to throw "up against the wall" to disarm.
"Is that [Bloomberg's comments] racist to you?" host Sean Hannity asked de Blasio after playing a clip of the remarks.
"Oh, sure, Sean," said the mayor, who has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for the Democratic nomination. "Thank you for playing that for your millions of viewers, because now more people get to see who Mike Bloomberg really is."
'THROW THEM UP AGAINST THE WALL AND FRISK THEM': BLOOMBERG DEFENDS STOP AND FRISK IN NEW AUDIO
"He's totally out of touch with the people of his own city when he says that. It's derogatory, it's unfair, it's not truthful," de Blasio added. "But on top of that, what happened? It made it harder for the police and the community to communicate and be on the same page. It created tons of pain for parents [and] grandparents trying to bring up their kids the right way."
De Blasio, who ended his own campaign for the Democratic nomination in September, slammed Bloomberg as an elitist who cannot relate "everyday people."
"When you watch Michael Bloomberg on that debate stage, he's got no clue what everyday people are going through. He doesn't care to know," de Blasio said. "When he was mayor here, if you tried to talk about what's happening in neighborhoods, what was happening to everyday people, all he could think about was that elite he comes from."
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Later in the interview, Hannity credited Sanders as "sincere," telling de Blasio "he believes this crap."
"You disagree with him," de Blasio responded, "but you don't doubt that what he is saying is the truth."
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