Trump Campaign Shares Audio Of Bloomberg Defending ‘Stop And Frisk’

By
Lawrence Richard
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OPINION | Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those held by Sarah Palin.

President Trump shared a tweet early on Tuesday morning where he described Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg as “a total racist” amid newly released audio of him defending the controversial policy of “stop and frisk.”

As the Hill reports, Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale similarly tweeted on Tuesday that Bloomberg is a “complete racist” as the audio reveals him attributing all crime throughout the country to minorities.

The tweet was shared alongside audio of Bloomberg speaking to the Aspen Institute in 2015 where he is heard as saying he only deployed law enforcement officials to minority neighbors because they are responsible for all crime in the country, the Daily Wire reports.

The Daily Wire reports Bloomberg made a number of controversial statements in the shared audio, released by podcast host Benjamin Dixon.

“95% of your murders – murderers and murder victims fit one M.O.,” Bloomberg reportedly said. “You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16-25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city and that’s where the real crime is.”

“You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed,” the former Mayor continued. “You want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods.”

“So, one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true,” he admitted. “Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods,” he stated. “Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them. And then they start say[ing], ‘Oh I don’t want to get caught.’ So they don’t bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.”

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According to the report, the Aspen Institute did not release the footage of the event per Bloomberg’s request.

“Michael Bloomberg representatives have asked the Aspen Institute not to distribute footage of his recent appearance in Aspen, where the three-term New York City mayor made pointed comments concerning minorities and gun control,” the Aspen Times reported in 2015. “Both the Institute and GrassRoots TV, the organization that filmed the event, confirmed Thursday that they will not broadcast the footage online or on television as planned.”

As the Daily Wire reports, Jim Spiegelman from the Aspen Institute told the outlet that the organization was going to honor Bloomberg’s request per a standing policy the institute has with its speakers.

“We basically honor the wishes of our speakers, and Mayor Bloomberg preferred that we not use the video for broadcast,” the Aspen Institute’s told the outlet in an email. “He did not give a reason nor did we have any reason to ask for one. We often feature speakers who prefer that their presentations not be videotaped.”

But it wasn’t the only audio released from the venue.

The Trump campaign shared another video of Bloomberg defending “stop and frisk” on a radio show. In the clip, Bloomberg said his law enforcement officials actually stopped white people “too much and minorities too little.”

“I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little. It’s exactly the reverse of what they’re saying. I don’t know where they went to school but they certainly didn’t take a math course or a logic course,” Bloomberg said.

More audio of Bloomberg defending the controversial policy continued to be shared online:

BizPac Review reports Bloomberg apologized as recently as November for the controversial “stop and frisk” policy that he implemented during his time as mayor.

Speaking to a predominantly black church in Brooklyn last November, Bloomberg said: “I got something important really wrong.”

“I didn’t understand back then the full impact that stops were having on the black and Latino communities. I was totally focused on saving lives — but as we know, good intentions aren’t good enough,” he said per the report.

“Today, I want you to know that I realize that back then I was wrong,” he continued. “And I’m sorry.”