Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has picked up key endorsements following his controversial comments on New York’s stop-and-frisk policy.
Reps. Lucy McBath and Gregory Meeks, plus Stacey Plaskett, the congressional representative of the U.S. Virgin Islands, all Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus, have endorsed Bloomberg for president. The members of Congress cite Bloomberg’s record on gun laws, while also adding he has the greatest chance to best Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
“I first met Mike when I was searching for ways to fight against the dangerous gun laws that ripped my son from my life,” McBath, whose son was shot and killed, said. “Mike gave grieving mothers like me a way to stand up and fight back. Nobody running for president has done more for the gun violence prevention movement than Mike. I am proud to stand with him in this race and [to] work with him when he is in the White House to keep our communities safe.”
Plaskett said Bloomberg can unite the country around “the common purpose of rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure and driving our economy forward into the 21st century.”
“The most vulnerable communities in America cannot weather another four years of a Donald Trump presidency,” Meeks said in a statement. “Too much is on the line to allow that to happen.
The endorsements come after audio emerged of Bloomberg from 2015 in which he argued, “95% of murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O. You can just take a description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities, 16 to 25,” Bloomberg said. “The way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them … And then they start … ‘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.”
Bloomberg apologized for the policy into 2019, prior to entering the presidential race.
