President Joe Biden took exactly the stance he should have taken when a reporter asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if the president has a response to calls for all three participants in a racist conversation to resign their posts as Los Angeles City Council members.
“The President is glad to see that one of the participants in that conversation has resigned, but they all should,” Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing on Tuesday. “He believes that they all should resign.
“The language that was used and tolerated during that conversation was unacceptable and it was appalling. They should all step down.”
Nury Martinez, who was caught in a leaked recording comparing the 8-year-old Black son of a fellow council member to a monkey, resigned her post as city council president on Monday and announced she was taking a leave of absence on Tuesday, the same day at the city’s regularly scheduled council meeting. But she has not stepped down from the council altogether.
RELATED STORY: Leaked audio of Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez is so vile, it forces resignation
Council members Gil Cedillo and Kevin De León attended the meeting the recording was captured at, as did Ron Herrera, then-president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. De León and Cedillo have yet to step down, despite calls to do so from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and a growing list of local and national politicians.
Herrera resigned his post Monday night following promised action from Teamsters Local 399, a union representing film industry workers in Hollywood.
"Should the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor continue to remain under the leadership of President Herrera, Local 399 Principal Officer, and one of the Vice Presidents on the LA Federation of Labor Board, Lindsay Dougherty, has asked the Local 399 Executive Board to immediately remove itself from the organization and withhold any further support or contributions," the union wrote in a statement on Monday. "The 399 Executive Board has approved said motion."
The Federation of Labor, which represents more than 800,000 workers, followed the Teamsters statement with an announcement of Herrera’s resignation. "Racism in any form has no place in the House of Labor," the federation said. "It is unconscionable that those elected to fight for our communities of color would engage in repulsive and vile anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Asian and anti-Oaxacan remarks that pit our working communities against each other. These sentiments will not be tolerated by our organization or those who we represent."
At the time of the recording in October 2021, Martinez was criticizing the behavior of Mike Bonin’s son at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in 2017. The child was 2 years old when Martinez commented that he “needs a beatdown” because of his behavior while riding on a parade float with his father. She also said Bonin handled the child as though he were an “accessory,” a statement De León agreed with, adding that Bonin handles the boy like Martinez does a Louis Vuitton or Goyard handbag.
Bonin responded to the remarks at the city council meeting CNN covered. He said he was "angry and heartbroken."
“My husband and I are both raw and angry and heartbroken and sick for our family and for Los Angeles,” Bonin said. “Public officials are supposed to call us to our highest selves and these people stabbed us and shot us and cut the very spirit of Los Angeles. It gave a beat down to the heart and soul of the city.”
Martinez apologized in two different statements, one to announce her resignation as president of the city council and another announcing her leave. “At this moment, I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders,” Martinez said.
She is the latest in a long list of politicians caught making racist remarks about Black people, from overt examples to more subtle ones like that of Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who linked the descendants of slaves seeking reparations to crime. "They want crime. They want crime, because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have," Tuberville told a pro-Donald Trump crowd. "They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bulls---. They are not owed that."
RELATED STORY: GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville might as well have been wearing the hood in a recent Trump rally
“Here’s a difference between Democrats and MAGA Republicans,” Jean-Pierre said at the White House news briefing. “When a Democrat says something racist or antisemitic, we hold Democrats accountable. When a MAGA Republican says something racist or antisemitic, they are embraced by cheering crowds and become celebrated.”
Read other statements calling Martinez and her counterparts out for their vile conversation: