For anyone else, the scratchy tape — on which Bloomberg argued that the only way to get guns out of the hands of young “minorities” is “to throw them up against the wall and frisk them” — would pose a potentially fatal blow.

But Bloomberg, in the roughest 48 hours of his young campaign, rallied a vast network of black surrogates and community leaders whose causes he’s backed or invested in to vouch for his character as he works to contain the firestorm.

One pastor in particular pressed Bloomberg, who began his presidential campaign by apologizing for his race-based policing policies.

“We accept your apology at one level, but we want to let you know that we’ll be looking for more concrete expressions of your apology in terms of the African American community,” said Calvin Butts, a Harlem pastor who attended the meeting, describing the line of questioning from a different clergy member in attendance. Butts called it a “genuine” exchange and “not hostile”; Bloomberg was quiet and “accepted what was being said to him.”

Butts said Bloomberg’s financial support of causes important to black New Yorkers throughout his time in office and after helps alleviate concerns about his past embrace of the policing tactic stop and frisk. Butts recalled Bloomberg offering his economic development operation a handsome check in 2008, timed to the bicentennial of his Abyssinian Baptist Church. “He used his money, which is one of the reasons I continue to support him, to express his sincerity,” Butts said.

By the end of Tuesday, Bloomberg's team had a damage control plan in motion.

Several Bloomberg allies went on record to defend their friend and, in some cases, patron.

While their efforts won’t quiet skeptics, the show of force opened a window into the dexterity of an operation that has spent months preparing for the fallout of positions that are out of step with the left plank of the party he hopes to lead.

Stockton, Calif., Mayor Michael Tubbs, a national co-chairman of the Bloomberg campaign, said in an interview that the moment presents Bloomberg with an opportunity to make the case his views have changed, while putting the episode in broader context.

“It’s really ahistorical to point out [problems with] stop and frisk as if the ’94 crime bill that predated Bloomberg’s mayorship didn’t exist,” said Tubbs, referencing tough-on-crime legislation that was championed by Joe Biden and supported by Bernie Sanders. “The views that are espoused on that tape were definitely terrible, but that was a predominant view driving criminal justice policy for the past 200, 250 years in this country — this idea that black folks and Latino men are inherently more criminal than others.”

Bloomberg also held a conference call with the Black Economic Alliance to apologize, it was reported in Bloomberg News.

