Kevin de León, In Contentious CNN Interview, Defends Decision To Stay On Los Angeles City Council
Embattled Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de León defended his decision not to resign, as colleagues continue to shun him and, last week, he got into a physical altercation with an activist at a community event.
De León told CNN that he planned to attend a council meeting on Tuesday, even though proceedings have been interrupted and even delayed as activists shout calls for him to step down.
“Let me say this Kate, and let me be very clear about this: In a democracy voters make the decision, not folks who are in the peanut gallery, or political pundits, or even my own colleagues,” he said.
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He also addressed members of the council who walked out of the meeting last week, as he made his first appearance in the chamber since October.
“Tens of millions of Americans go to work every single day with folks that they don’t like. But you know what they do? They get up and they go to work. They don’t have the luxury that some folks do when they want to walk out.”
De León has refused widespread calls for him to resign, ever since the revelation of a leaked 2021 conversation he had with then-City Council President Nury Martinez, Councilman Gil Gedillo and Los Angeles labor leader Ron Herrera. During their conversation, Martinez was heard making racist remarks about the child of another council member, Mike Bonin, while de León makes a joke about Martinez’s comparison of Bonin’s Black son to a fashion accessory.
Martinez resigned from the council, and Herrera stepped down as president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Cedillo lost a bid for reelection earlier this year.
De León told CNN’s Kate Bolduan “if you don’t think I’m profoundly sorry for participating in that meeting, and for not standing up and shutting that meeting down, and shutting down the vitriolic comments from the then-president of the council, who did eventually resign, that is something I will forever be sorry for.”
Bolduan, however, interrupted de León, pointing out that “it wasn’t just that you didn’t stand up. You also took part in the conversation. You compared the young Black child of a councilman to being an accessory like a luxury handbag.”
De León challenged that assertion as out of context, so Bolduan played the clip of the audio, in which Martinez can be heard accusing Bonin of handling his son like an accessory. It’s then that de León makes appears to make the comparison, referencing times “when Nury brings her little yard bag or the Louis Vuitton bag.”
“I shouldn’t have said what I said, because it actually was a comment, I was criticizing, actually Councilwoman Nury Martinez for her penchant for luxury handbags,” de León told CNN. Bonin, who did not run for reelection and is no longer on the council, had called de León’s past explanation as “gaslighting of the highest order.
During the interview, CNN also played video of the altercation that de León had with activist Jason Reedy at a community event last week, although he did not address it during the segment. It is now under investigation by the LAPD. Police said de Leon “was approached by multiple community members who blocked his path of travel as he attempted to leave the building. It was during this encounter that an allegation was made by one male, identified as Jason Reedy, of headbutting, pushing, and punching Councilmember de Leon.”
De Leon and Reedy each filed battery reports. De Leon also tweeted out his account of the incident, slowing down video to claim that Reedy blocked him and later struck him at the event.
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