“WOW, BLOOMBERG IS A TOTAL RACIST!” tweeted President Donald J. Trump.
He was reacting to a recording, recently unearthed, of Democratic presidential aspirant Michael Bloomberg speaking to the Aspen Institute in 2015 about his controversial “stop-and-frisk” police policy while mayor of New York City.
“Ninety-five percent of your murders, murderers and murder victims fit one M.O.,” Bloomberg told his audience. “You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. . . . that’s where the real crime is.”
“And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands,” explained Mayor Mike, “is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them.”
Bloomberg has since apologized for targeting young male minorities to be regularly detained, searched, harassed and thrown into walls by police on the basis of nothing more than being young male minorities. Ultimately, a federal court struck down Bloomberg’s program as an unconstitutional mass violation of Fourth Amendment rights.
“We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically,” Trump argued in 2016, floating a national roll-out and defending Bloomberg as “a very good mayor.”
Back in 2009, Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Trump were together on something else: Bloomberg disregarding a campaign promise and defying two clear citywide referendums to run for a third mayor term.
“Well, I’m not a believer in term limits,” Trump said then, adding, “Michael is a friend of mine.”
Funny, asked about then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, Trump offered, “I think she’s a wonderful women,” but “she’s a little bit misunderstood.”
Not long after posting the racist-baiting tweet noted above, the president deleted it.
We understand.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Frisky Friends”
We understand too. What happened in 2009 is largely irrelevant , compared to what is happening now. It is rather apparent to everyone except ‘never Trumpers’ and Mitt Romney that President Trump has amended his views on certain issues, since then.
Drifter — I think you are generally correct that Mr. Trump has changed some of his views. And been true to that change. For instance, he has not just talked pro-life, but acted in the most pro-life manner of any president in the last 50 years.
The jury is out on term limits. On stop-and-frisk, Trump has not pushed the policy, but I suspect still supports it. Bloomberg has apologized, but it rings to me like a “sorry–not sorry” type apology. I would like to see his anguish at having violated so many people’s basic rights. It isn’t there. Sadly, I think Trump is with Bloomberg and still wrong on those police tactics.