Mayoral candidate Helen Gym and ex-Mayor Michael Nutter clashed during a live event: ‘We are just in total disagreement’

When former Mayor Michael A. Nutter interviewed Rebecca Rhynhart this month as part of a Q&A series with candidates running for his old job, he began by warning that he wouldn’t take it easy on her just because she got her start in government by working in his administration.

His first questions: “Where did you grow up? Where did you go to school? What was your major?”

It didn’t get much more difficult for Rhynhart that night during her interview, as Nutter tossed out a series of softballs to one of his apparent favorites in the race. Rhynhart served as budget director under Nutter before becoming city controller, and he gave her $3,100 last year, the maximum contribution allowable under city law.

Nutter has been far less kind to some of Rhynhart’s rivals in this year’s crowded mayor’s race, especially two of the early front-runners.

In the latest “Ultimate Job Interview” event sponsored by the Philadelphia Citizen on Tuesday night, he grilled former Councilmember Helen Gym on a range of topics that read as if they came from an opposition research report, from potential conflicts of interest resulting from her husband’s legal career to her founding of a charter school.

The two engaged in a spirited back-and-forth, with Gym at one point dropping an expletive and at another saying Nutter’s performance as mayor is among the reasons she’s running.

Similarly, Nutter aggressively probed first-time candidate Jeff Brown three weeks ago by quizzing him on municipal government arcana like the Sinking Fund, which handles city debt payments.

Those exchanges demonstrate that Nutter is playing an unusual role in this year’s election. Former mayors often issue endorsements in elections for their old jobs, but they rarely get their hands dirty in the campaign.

Nutter flirted with jumping in the race himself before shooting down that possibility last month. Since then, he has created a series of notably adversarial moments that have stood out in part because the candidates have so far largely refrained from attacking one another.

The Citizen is an online news site that publishes commentary and news. Nutter has used its public interview series to prod some candidates, while leaving others mostly unscathed. His interrogation of Gym, who as an education activist was critical of Nutter’s administration, was the most intense back-and-forth to date.

It’s no surprise the two clashed when put on stage together. Gym is a leader in Philly’s progressive movement, and Nutter is a centrist Democrat who catered to business interests as mayor and was a chief bogeyman of the left.

The former mayor first asked Gym how she would defend the city in a lawsuit that the School District of Philadelphia filed over legislation that she backed. When she began to describe the legislation, he cut her off and said, “I don’t want to go through the history of the bill.”

It got more tense from there.

Nutter asked Gym why she in 2019 did not recuse herself from a Council vote on a bill that would have required pharmaceutical sales representatives to register with the city. At the time, her husband was working as an attorney with AmerisourceBergen, a Conshohocken-based drug distributor. Gym voted against the bill, which failed on a 5-9 vote.

Gym said that the bill was “deeply flawed” and that she stands by the vote, but she dodged Nutter’s question on whether she should have abstained due to her potential conflict of interest.

Then Nutter asked Gym about why she in 2005 cofounded a charter school — the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School in Chinatown — yet has been a frequent critic of charter-school expansion.

”I’m only questioning the seeming potential contradiction in that you started a charter, but then in many instances in Black and brown communities you have been opposed to those charter schools,” Nutter said. “Where do those parents’ voices get to be?”

Gym said that the charter-school landscape had evolved over the last 30 years, noting that dozens of public schools were closed when Nutter was mayor and some were converted to charter schools. Those closures, which Nutter defended at the time, were a galvanizing moment for many public school advocates.

Gym said it factored into her journey to elected office, saying public school closures, especially in Black and brown neighborhoods, created “educational desert[s].”

“I probably wouldn’t be on this stage if not for the decisions that occurred in your administration,” Gym said. “We are very different people.”

She added: “The fact we see each other and we see things in vastly different lights, we are just in total disagreement.”

In his final question, Nutter noted that Gym said during a recent mayoral forum: “When I walk into the room, systems of oppression fall and new systems of opportunity come up.”

“I literally never heard Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi ever say anything like that,” he said. “But I guess I just want to ask, I mean, is that what happened when you walked into the Union League?”

He was referring to Gym’s visit last month to the swanky Center City private club days after she criticized it for presenting an award to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Gym shot back, saying her comment about systems of oppression was meant as a rejection of an “old, antiquated form of politics.”

“I’m obviously not taking credit and saying that I’m gonna do all this stuff, but yeah, is that my attitude when I come into a room? Abso-[expletive]-lutely,” she said.

During a Q&A later in the event, Gym was asked about the Union League appearance again and said she has “made it very clear that attending an event there sent the wrong message.”

Gym said after the event that Nutter was entitled to ask tough questions but noted that she and the former mayor are “two very different kinds of leaders.” She said she was trying to make it clear that “he made choices that I said to myself that I would never make.”

“He’s just trying to throw some random questions around that didn’t actually get at anything,” she said. “If he had actually listened to what I said, I think he would have had all his answers pretty clear.”

Nutter after the event defended his questions and expressed frustration at Gym’s characterizations of his administration’s work on education, saying, “Somehow she’s the only one who cares about kids, the only one who’s done anything to improve schools. That’s just not true.”

“If the candidate chooses to use their time to try to kind of come back on something from the past, I mean, we can play that game all night,” Nutter said. “I don’t think it’s particularly helpful for the audience. My record is well known.”