“They are male minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York. That’s true in virtually every city,” the clip continues. “And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed.”

The clip seems to have originated from Bloomberg’s speech at an Aspen Institute event in February 2015. Later that month, The Aspen Times reported that Bloomberg’s representatives had asked the Aspen Institute not to distribute footage of his appearance. A Bloomberg campaign aide did not respond to questions about whether the video would be released.

President Donald Trump quickly pounced on Bloomberg as the clip spread across Twitter on Tuesday morning, writing online: “WOW, BLOOMBERG IS A TOTAL RACIST!”

Trump, who had previously called for “stop-and-frisk” to be instituted nationwide while campaigning for president in 2016, later deleted his tweet, issuing another message mocking Bloomberg’s height and golf game.

The campaign manager and communications director for the president’s reelection effort both promoted Bloomberg’s comments from the clip in their own posts to Twitter.

In a statement, Bloomberg said that Trump’s deleted tweet “is the latest example of his endless efforts to divide Americans,” and acknowledged that “stop-and-frisk” was “overused” in New York.

“By the time I left office, I cut it back by 95%, but I should’ve done it faster and sooner. I regret that and I have apologized — and I have taken responsibility for taking too long to understand the impact it had on Black and Latino communities,” Bloomberg said.

“But this issue and my comments about it do not reflect my commitment to criminal justice reform and racial equity,” he added.

In a follow-up statement, Bloomberg’s campaign said he began a pre-scheduled meeting with 20-plus black faith leaders at his headquarters shortly after the president’s tweet posted.

“He expressed regret over his past insensitivity regarding policies like stop and frisk and showed a continued interest in restorative justice,” the leaders said in a joint statement. “To be clear: None of us believe that Mike Bloomberg is a racist. Actions speak louder than words, and Mike has a long record of fighting for equality, civil rights, and criminal justice reform.”

Just a week before launching his presidential campaign in November, Bloomberg apologized at an African American church in Brooklyn for overseeing the implementation of “stop-and-frisk” and defending the New York Police Department’s use of the law enforcement tactic — which disproportionately affected black and Latino men and has been widely denounced by critics as a civil rights violation.

“You want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods,” Bloomberg appears to say in the recording, describing the controversial policy.

“So, [inaudible] unintended consequences is people say, ‘Oh, my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is,” the clip continues.

“And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them. [Inaudible] and then they start, they say, [inaudible] ‘Oh, I don’t want to get caught.’ So they don't bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.”

Bloomberg’s Democratic rivals mostly dodged questions regarding the clip Tuesday, declining to engage with the controversy as they campaigned in New Hampshire on the day of the first-in-the-nation primary.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who told reporters he was retreating from the state to travel to South Carolina and then Nevada, suggested he would reference “stop-and-frisk” during the primary debate next week in Las Vegas, but otherwise stayed quiet.

“We’re going to debate him there. And so I’m anxious to talk about it,” he said.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar also chose not to weigh in when asked about the clip during an interview on MSNBC, saying of Bloomberg: “I’m not going to focus on him. I’m going to focus on me.”

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer challenged Bloomberg most directly, calling his statements “extremely disturbing,” according to the Associated Press.

“The racist stereotypes he uses have no place today, and anyone running for the presidential nomination should disavow them,” he said.

Bloomberg’s remarks began circulating Monday night on the eve of voting in New Hampshire, one of the four early nominating states the former New York mayor has opted to skip.

Instead, he has focused on amassing delegates in the more-than-a-dozen primaries taking place in March on Super Tuesday, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a historic television advertising blitz and a massive nationwide organization.

The investment has shown signs of paying off in recent weeks, as Bloomberg rose to third place among the field nationally in a Quinnipiac University poll published on Monday. He achieved the support of 15 percent of Democratic voters, behind only Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with 25 percent and Biden with 17 percent.

Bloomberg also garnered the second-most support from black Democrats in the survey, with 22 percent to Biden’s 27 percent.

Sally Goldenberg and Nolan D. McCaskill contributed to this report.