Christine Quinn and Corey Lewandowski Bicker Over Trump’s Khan Remarks

By JONAH ENGEL BROMWICH and MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUMAUG. 1, 2016

Many of New York’s public figures remember the first time they incurred the wrath of Christine C. Quinn, the former City Council speaker known for her unapologetically forceful style.

For Corey Lewandowski, that first time happened to occur on live national television.

Mr. Lewandowski, the former campaign manager for Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, was visibly startled on Monday when Ms. Quinn cut him off during a heated exchange on the CNN show “New Day.”

Ms. Quinn and Mr. Lewandowski, both paid contributors for the network who regularly appear together on the program, were discussing Mr. Trump’s controversial remarks about the Khan family, the Muslim parents of an Army captain who was killed in Iraq more than a decade ago. Khizr Khan, the father, denounced Mr. Trump at the Democratic National Convention last week as his wife, Ghazala Khan, stood silently by his side.

Mr. Lewandowski defended Mr. Trump, saying the candidate had the right to respond to an attack. Ms. Quinn, a Democrat, was visibly frustrated and suggested that Mr. Lewandowski lacked sympathy for Ms. Khan.

“Any person who has lost anyone or even any person who’s been so blessed that they haven’t could understand why she couldn’t talk even all these years later about losing her son in the way she lost him,” Ms. Quinn said.

“I lost my mother when I was 16,” she added. “I’m 50. I couldn’t stand in front of America and talk about her.”

When Mr. Lewandowski tried to cut in, Ms. Quinn spoke over him and thrust her arms in front of him, prompting Mr. Lewandowski to stiffly respond, “You’ve got to relax a little bit.”

Ms. Quinn replied, “I do not have to relax.”

“Excuse me,” Mr. Lewandowski interrupted. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.”

“Calm down,” she responded.

Mr. Lewandowski was not assuaged. “Relax,” he said again.

Ms. Quinn retorted: “I’m not going to relax. Because we have a man running for president of the United States who made a gold star mother have to go on TV and cry in front of America. This isn’t about politics——”

Mr. Lewandowski cut in. “He didn’t ask anyone to go on TV,” he said.

Reached by phone Monday afternoon, Mr. Lewandowski referred questions about the appearance to CNN.

Ms. Quinn, in a telephone interview, said that she left the studio without speaking to Mr. Lewandowski after the broadcast ended, but that they later exchanged polite emails. She said that Mr. Lewandowski apologized that the morning had been tense.

Explaining her on-air reaction, Ms. Quinn said: “I was frustrated and disgusted because of the framing of the Khan family and the continued attacks against them that Corey was making and repeating from the Trump handbook.”

Mr. Lewandowski was dismissed by Mr. Trump in June after a sometimes rocky tenure: In March, he was arrested after an altercation with a reporter at a Florida rally. The charge was later dropped.

Ms. Quinn, who stayed out of public view after her loss in the 2013 mayoral primary, has recently re-emerged as a highly visible surrogate for Hillary Clinton, regularly appearing on CNN as a fierce defender of the candidate.

Ms. Quinn is currently serving as the president and chief executive of Win, a provider of shelters and services to homeless families in New York City.

Her rising national profile has fueled some speculation — dismissed by her allies — that she could mount a challenge in 2017 against Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat whose approval ratings have dwindled. But Ms. Quinn’s confidants say that she has no intention of returning so quickly to the realm where she suffered a painful defeat.

Ms. Quinn said she had “no reaction” to her inclusion in a Quinnipiac poll on Monday as a potential candidate for mayor in 2017.

“With all due respect to whoever took the poll and the people who were in it,” she said, “it was the least of my concerns today.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/us...n-remarks.html