CNN’s Cristina Alesci warned viewers Tuesday to be wary of recently surfaced audio of 2020 Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg bragging about the oppressive stop-and-frisk policies he championed as mayor of New York City.
After all, the CNN reporter claimed, as we don’t have the full audio of the former mayor’s remarks, we don’t have the full context. This would be a prudent warning were it not for the fact that the audio has been readily available online since 2015.
With a news media like this, who even needs spin doctors?
On Monday, podcast host Benjamin Dixon tweeted snippets of audio from an address Bloomberg delivered in 2015 at the Aspen Institute.
“Bloomberg had video of speech blocked,” Dixon adds. “Perhaps because of the problematic explanation he gives for #StopAndFrisk.”
As of this writing, his tweet has been shared by more than 11,000 social users. By Tuesday morning, the hashtag “#BloombergIsRacist” became a top-trending topic on social media in the United States.
But for Alesci, the real takeaway is not that Bloomberg, who is polling third in the 2020 Democratic primary, can be heard casually explaining how racial profiling was used to enforce unjust policies he zealously championed as mayor. The real takeaway is that, as an apparent fan of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Dixon cannot be trusted.
Really.
“So, here’s the thing, important context here,” said Alesci after CNN producers played audio of Bloomberg explaining that the best way to control gun violence is to target minority communities because that is where “all the crime is.”
“We don’t have the full tape,” she said.
Yes, we do. It has been online since 2015. It can be found with even the most basic Google search.
“So, this is obviously snippets that have been released, the podcaster and the writer that released this sound is clearly a Bernie supporter,” the CNN politics and business reporter continued, “If you look at his Twitter feed, he’s very anti-Bloomberg, he’s promoting a hashtag ‘#BloombergIsARacist.'”
Alesci, who, by the way, is an alumna of the Bloomberg News empire, added, “We don’t know how he got the sound to begin with.”
It is right there on YouTube! It has been there for five years! Google the damn thing! Also, what do Dixon’s alleged political affiliations have to do with anything? Surely Alesci is not suggesting that this could be a non-story because, well, a Bernie Bro tweeted about it.
“A lot of questions are being asked especially on the timing of this,” the CNN reporter said, “so, the timing here and the mission here all calling into question.”
Alesci then added for good measure that President Trump had already “seized on” Bloomberg’s remarks.
None of this is relevant. None of this has anything to do with the actual news story at hand, which is that a top-polling Democratic candidate is on record endorsing racist, anti-Second Amendment, big-government policies.
The audio, by the way, is pretty bad.
“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,” Bloomberg said. “They are male, minorities, 16 to 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 people that are getting killed.”
He added, “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. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is.”
Bloomberg also explained that stop-and-frisk worked because it encouraged young minorities to leave their guns at home.
“And 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,” he said. “They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.”
It is bad. Very bad. A real news organization with real news reporters would see that.
