Comedian Bill Maher’s audience didn’t take kindly to his defense of 2020 presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg’s comments on New York City’s stop-and-frisk policy.
“We have a new front-runner, Michael Bloomberg,” Maher said during his Friday night show. “What the f—? Well, Bloomberg must be the front-runner because liberals are calling him a racist.”
The noted liberal continued, “I think he has real blind spots, this guy, but I don’t think he did it because he thought he was not helping. I think he thought he was helping, and I think he pictured — he’s a business guy, and part of this is because the police can’t be trusted with this policy because they do throw people against the wall instead of doing it the way they should sometimes, not all — OK, but he’s picturing not that person, he’s picturing the store owner who’s saying, ‘My neighborhood’s a tough neighborhood — can you help me?'”
Maher’s remarks were met with boos from attendees. He responded to the boos by saying, “Keep booing, that’s how you lost the last election,” and adding, “I will happily vote for him [Mike Bloomberg] if he is the winning bidder.”
Bloomberg faced criticism from people in his own party earlier this week when an audio clip of him defending New York City’s stop-and-frisk policies from 2015 was leaked.
“Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16 to 25,” Bloomberg said in the clip.
“People say, ‘Oh my God. You are arresting kids for marijuana who are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why’d we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you should get the guns out of the kids’ hands is throw them against the wall and frisk them,” the former New York City mayor added.
