Jason Mattera relives confrontation with Mike Bloomberg over gun hypocrisy

With former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg participating as a candidate in the most recent Democratic debate this week, Emmy-winning journalist and occasional Dori fill-in Jason Mattera recalled the time he got into a slight altercation with the politician over gun rights in 2013.

Knowing that Bloomberg was a forceful gun reform activist, Mattera approached the mayor as he got into a car in Washington, D.C. Seeing Bloomberg’s extensive and well-armed security team, Mattera asked, “Mayor Bloomberg, in the spirit of gun control, will you disarm your entire security team?”

At that point, security guards grabbed Mattera’s arm and attempted to push him away. They shielded Bloomberg so that he could get in the car.

Unperturbed, Mattera continued, “Mayor Bloomberg, why can you defend yourself, but not the majority of Americans? Look at the team of security you’ve got — and you’re an advocate for gun control?”

“Once they realized it was not a friendly, pat-on-the-back question, they got all up in my face,” Mattera recalled on the Dori Monson Show on Wednesday.

Even after Bloomberg had been driven away, a police officer followed Mattera down the street, asking for his date of birth.

“It was an attempt at intimidation for daring to ask a politician why he can arm himself and not the rest of us,” Mattera said.

However, Mattera declared that as a Brooklyn native, he refuses to be intimidated by a politician. He is glad that his confrontation with Bloomberg is forever captured on video.

“I think that’s why Bloomberg is not going to go anywhere in the primary — he is such an arrogant elitist,” Mattera said. “The snobbery comes off, he’s a technocrat — he really does believe that he can arrange our lives better than we can.”

To learn more about Jason Mattera’s work, visit his website or follow him on Twitter.

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