Christine Quinn’s appearance on the newly renamed Piers Morgan Live on Monday started with a question from Morgan about Coca-Cola’s donation to her mayoral campaign, as the City Council speaker has not been a supporter of Mayor Bloomberg’s recently halted ban on large sugary drinks. Quinn downplayed the “small donation of about $10,000 out of the six or seven million we’ve raised so far.” Morgan then asked her about “sodagate,” eliciting one of Quinn’s legendary laughs. And then they got into it, with Quinn arguing for giving people better access to healthier choices, rather than banning the bad stuff, and Morgan exclaiming, “I think people need the nanny state occasionally.”
Morgan went on to say that “we all need a bit of nannying about. That’s why so many people are on diets. That’s a form of nanny state.” Quinn stuck to her point that if you just keep telling people “no” without giving them better options, they’ll go and do the thing you’re banning. But she said, “I hope I’m wrong” about the soda ban. Presumably Bloomberg will make a better pro-ban argument than Morgan when he goes on Letterman tonight.