Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg claims no one asked him until he was a 2020 contender about the controversial “stop and frisk” policy the NYPD adopted while he was mayor of New York City.
Bloomberg recently apologized for “stop and frisk,” the practice that disproportionately affected black and Latino men in New York of briefly stopping civilians on the street to question them and search them for weapons or illegal substances.
“I was wrong,” Bloomberg, 77, said last month in Brooklyn. “And I am sorry.”
“Some people are suspicious of the timing of your apology,” CBS anchor Gayle King told Bloomberg during an interview that aired Friday.
Former NYC Mayor @MikeBloomberg tells @GayleKing “nobody asked” him about stop & frisk until he started running for president.
“I’m sorry. I apologize. Let’s go fight the NRA and find other ways to stop the murders and incarceration. Those are things that I’m committed to do.” pic.twitter.com/ww1pJPraBt
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) December 6, 2019
“Well, the mark of an intelligent, competent person is when they make a mistake, they have the guts to stand up and say ‘I made a mistake, I’m sorry,’” Bloomberg responded.
King pressed further, saying people do not question whether Bloomberg believes he made a mistake but rather the convenient timing of his realization.
“Nobody asked me about it until I started running for president, so come on,” Bloomberg shot back.
“We were overzealous at the time to do it,” he added. “Our intent was to do anything we could to stop the carnage, the murder rate. And what was surprising is when we stopped doing it a little bit, we thought crime would go up. It didn’t. It went down. Should have, would have, and could have, I can’t help that. In looking back, I made a mistake. I’m sorry, I apologize.”
“Let’s go fight the NRA and find other ways to stop the murders and incarceration. Those are things that I’m committed to do,” Bloomberg concluded.
Bloomberg is currently polling in fifth place behind former vice president Joe Biden, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg.