Bloomberg on Surveillance of Muslim Community After 9/11 Attacks: ‘All of the People Came From the Same Place’

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has spent the last few weeks enduring criticism for some of his policies during the time in which he was in charge of the city. And the Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t always been the best at explaining his policies.

In an interview with PBS’ Judy Woodruff, Bloomberg defended his surveillance of the Muslim community after 9/11. In a clip of the interview, Bloomberg begins his answer, “That’s what intelligence is all about, you have to step back and understand, we had 3,000 people killed in a few minutes.”

When Woodruff pressed him, noting, “It wasn’t a religion that killed them,” Bloomberg responded, “No, but all of the people came from the same place. And all that came were from a place — they happened to be one religion and if they’d been another religion, it would have been the same thing.”

This is hardly the first time that Bloomberg — who is funding his own campaign and only recently became a fixture on the debate stage — has been criticized for something that he did as mayor. The most frequent criticism of him is usually in addressing his “stop-and-frisk” policy in New York City that was widely condemned as racist.

Bloomberg has frequently defended his stop-and-frisk program, during a recent appearance on “The Late Show,” he told host Stephen Colbert, “Well, we did the best thing we can. I think it had something to do with it at some point in time. You do too much of one thing, then you should stop doing it. We reduced the incarceration rate. We reduced the recidivism rate.”

Even current New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio has criticized his predecessor for the policy, saying “He’s totally out of touch with the people of his own city when he” defends the policy.