While New York City Mayor Bill de Balsio was giving his opening remarks at the second night of debates on CNN, an audience member heckled him.
De Blasio was touting how he was different from rivals like former Vice President Joe Biden and California Sen. Kamala Harris when he was interrupted.
“There are good people on this stage but real differences. Joe Biden told wealthy donors that nothing fundamentally would change if we were president. Kamala Harris said she’s not trying to restructure society. Well, I am,” de Blasio said.
“For 40 years, working people have taken on the chin in this country for 40 years the rich have gotten richer and they paid less and less in taxes. It cannot go on this way,” he said. “When I’m president, we will even up the score and we will tax the hell out of the wealthy to make this a fairer country and to make sure it’s a country that puts working people first.”
The protesters were chanting about the death of Eric Garner and the NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was involved.
Whole debate interrupted with “FIRE PANTALEO” chants aimed at de Blasio. Pantaleo is the Staten Island cop involved in Eric Garner death.
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) August 1, 2019
When it was Sen. Cory Booker’s turn to give his opening statement, protesters loudly interrupted again, forcing Booker to stop his speech.
In tweets from his Twitter account, de Blasio said, “To the protestors in the audience today: I heard you. I saw you. I thank you. This is what democracy looks like and no one said it was pretty.”
I want the Garner family and every single person hurt by the tragedy of his death to know they are seen and heard.
We all watched Eric Garner’s dying words. They haunted this nation. He NEVER should have died. #DemDebate
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) August 1, 2019
From ending a broken policy of stop-and-frisk to training our officers in implicit bias, we’ve fundamentally changed our city because of Eric Garner — so that a tragedy like this never happens again. #DemDebate
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) August 1, 2019
