On February 19, 2020 the Nevada Democratic presidential debate took place. For the first time, the billionaire Michael Bloomberg participated. He came under fire. And one cannot call it friendly fire, it was not Viva Las Vegas for Mike. Here the debate exchanges regarding Bloomberg.
Michael Bloomberg was asked if Senator Sanders could beat President Trump.
Bloomberg said: I don’t think there’s any chance of the senator beating President Trump. You don’t start out by saying I’ve got 160 million people I’m going to take away the insurance plan that they love. That’s just not a way that you go and start building the coalition that the Sanders camp thinks that they can do. I don’t think there’s any chance whatsoever. And if he goes and is the candidate, we will have Donald Trump for another four years. And we can’t stand that.
Elizabeth Warren was asked to join the conversation and opened fire on Bloomberg: So I’d like to talk about who we’re running against, a billionaire who calls women “fat broads” and “horse-faced lesbians.” And, no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.
Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women, and of supporting racist polls like redlining and stop and frisk.
Look, I’ll support whoever the Democratic nominee is. But understand this: Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another.
A bit later, Michael Bloomberg came again under fire. This time the attacker was Amy Klobuchar: … I actually welcomed Mayor Bloomberg to the stage. I thought that he shouldn’t be hiding behind his TV ads, and so I was all ready for this big day. And then I looked at the memo from his campaign staff this morning, and it said that he actually thought that three of us should get out of the way. That is what his campaign said because we should “pave the way” for him to become the nominee.
You know, I have been told as a woman, as someone that maybe no one thought was still going to be standing up on this stage, but I am because of pure grit and because of the people out there, I’ve been told many times to wait my turn and to step aside. And I’m not going to do that now, and I’m not going to do that because a campaign memo from Mayor Bloomberg said this morning that the only way that we get a nominee is if we step aside for him.
I think we need something different than Donald Trump. I don’t think you look at Donald Trump and say we need someone richer in the White House.
However, Amy Klobuchar does not seem to understand that Michael Bloomberg is right in the sense that too many “moderate” Democrats are in the race and the self-declared “Democratic Socialist” — a total nonsense in itself — risks to run away in the polls. Of course, by entering the race, Michael Bloomberg himself further divided the “moderate” field. But Pete Buttigieg has only been the mayor of a town with 100,000 people, which does not qualify him to directly move on to govern 330 million U.S. Americans. As for Amy Klobuchar, she is a senator, someone with no executive experience. In short, she is unqualified for the top job.
Michael Blooomberg responded to the attacks on him: I think we have two questions to face tonight. One is, who can beat Donald Trump? And, number two, who can do the job if they get into the White House? And I would argue that I am the candidate that can do exactly both of those things.
I’m a New Yorker. I know how to take on an arrogant conman like Donald Trump, that comes from New York. I’m a mayor or was a mayor. I know how to run a complicated city, the biggest, most diverse city in this country.
I’m a manager. I knew what to do after 9/11 and brought the city back stronger than ever. And I’m a philanthropist who didn’t inherit his money but made his money. And I’m spending that money to get rid of Donald Trump, the worst president we have ever had. And if I can get that done, it will be a great contribution to America and to my kids.
Joe Biden seems to be a man of the past. He is not presidential material. However, in the Democratic Nevada presidential debate, he had some good moments. Of course, he also opened fire on Michael Bloomberg, currently his bid rival on the “moderate” side of the Democratic race: … The mayor [Bloomberg] says that he has a great record, that he’s done these wonderful things. Well, the fact — the fact of the matter is, he has not managed his city very, very well when he was there. He didn’t get a whole lot done. He had stop and frisk, throwing close to 5 million young black men up against a wall. And when we came along in our administration, President Obama, and said we’re going to send in a moderator to — a mediator, stop it, he said that’s unnecessary.
So I — we’re going to get a chance to talk about the mayor’s record. But in terms of who is best prepared to beat Donald Trump, look at your poll and what it says [Biden is the best placed candidate to beat Trump].
Pete Buttigieg was another candidate opening fire on Michael Bloomberg: Yes, we’ve got to wake up as a party. We could wake up two weeks from today, the day after Super Tuesday, and the only candidates left standing will be Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg, the two most polarizing figures on this stage.
And most Americans don’t see where they fit if they’ve got to choose between a socialist who thinks that capitalism is the root of all evil and a billionaire who thinks that money ought to be the root of all power.
Let’s put forward somebody who actually lives and works in a middle-class neighborhood, in an industrial Midwestern city. Let’s put forward somebody who’s actually a Democrat. Look. We shouldn’t have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out. We can do better.
Someone should tell Pete Buttigieg that Michael Bloomberg was the only one on stage with a substantial and positive record both as CEO and former mayor of NYC. Buttigieg is clearly a smart, intelligent guy and a promise for the future. But for the future, not the present. He needs to get more experience in a higher, executive office. Maybe as a member of President Bloomberg’s government.
Elizabeth Warren later re-opened fire on Michael Bloomberg: … the way we are going to lead this country and beat Donald Trump is going to be with a candidate who has rock-solid values and who actually gets something done. When Mayor Bloomberg was busy blaming African-Americans and Latinos for the housing crash of 2008, I was right here in Las Vegas, literally just a few blocks down the street, holding hearings on the banks that were taking away homes from millions of families. …
But Elizabeth Warren’s values are not that rock-solid, and she has no executive experience.
Later, a moderator asked Michael Bloomberg if Vice President Biden was right saying that he, Bloomberg, was not a fan of Obamacare.
Michael Bloomberg: I am a fan of Obamacare. At the beginning…
Joe Biden: Since when, Mr. Mayor?
Michael Bloomberg: Mr. Vice President, I just checked the record, because you’d said one time that I was not. In ’09, I testified and gave a speech before the mayors’ conference in Washington advocating it and trying to get all the mayors to sign on. And I think at that time I wrote an article praising Obamacare. It was either in the New York Post or the Daily News. So the facts are I was there.
Joe Biden: Didn’t you call it a disgrace, though, Mr. Mayor?
Michael Bloomberg: Let me finish, thank you. I was in favor of it. I thought it didn’t do — go as far as we should. What Trump has done to this is a disgrace. The first thing we’ve got to do is get the White House and bring back those things that were left and then find a way to expand it, another public option, to having some rules about capping charges. All of those things. We shouldn’t just walk away and start something that is totally new, untried.
After some crosstalk, Joe Biden added: The mayor said, when we passed it, the signature piece of this administration, it’s a disgrace. They’re the exact words, it was a disgrace. Look it up, check it out. “It was a disgrace.” And I covered, by the way, my plan, you do not have surprise billing, you bring down drug prices, people are not — and give people all the things we were just talking about. I guess we’ve not got the time to do it, but I’ll get a chance to talk about…
A moderator later asked Bloomberg about his policing policy as mayor. He quoted Bloomberg: “We put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods.” And you explained that as, quote, “Because that’s where all the crime is.” You went on to say, “And the way you should get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them against the wall and frisk them.” You’ve apologized for that policy. But what does that kind of language say about how you view people of color or people in minority neighborhoods?
Michael Bloomberg told the debate moderator: Well, if I go back and look at my time in office, the one thing that I’m really worried about, embarrassed about, was how it turned out with stop and frisk.
When I got into office, there were 650 murders a year in New York City. And I thought that my first responsibility was to give people the right to live. That’s the basic right of everything. And we started — we adopted a policy, which had been in place, the policy that all big police departments use, of stop and frisk.
What happened, however, was it got out of control. And when we discovered — I discovered that we were doing many, many, too many stop and frisks, we cut 95 percent of it out. And I’ve sat down with a bunch of African-American clergy and businesspeople to talk about this, to try to learn. I’ve talked to a number of kids who’d been stopped.
And I’m trying — was trying to understand how we change our policy so we can keep the city safe, because the crime rate did go from 650, 50 percent down to 300. And we have to keep a lid on crime. But we cannot go out and stop people indiscriminately.
Joe Biden commented: Yes, let’s get something straight. The reason that stop and frisk changed is because Barack Obama sent moderators to see what was going on. When we sent them there to say this practice has to stop, the mayor thought it was a terrible idea we send them there, a terrible idea.
Let’s get the facts straight. Let’s get the order straight. And it’s not whether he apologized or not. It’s the policy. The policy was abhorrent. And it was a fact of violation of every right people have.
And we are the one, my — our administration sent — sent in people to moderate. And at the very time, the mayor argued against that. This idea that he figured out it was a bad idea, he figured out it was a bad idea after we sent in monitors and said it must stop. Even then, he continued the policy.
Michael Bloomberg responded: … I’ve sat, I’ve apologized, I’ve asked for forgiveness, but the bottom line is that we stopped too many people, but the policy — we stopped too many people. And we’ve got to make sure that we do something about criminal justice in this country.
There is no great answer to a lot of these problems. And if we took off everybody that was wrong off this panel, everybody that was wrong on criminal justice at some time in their careers, there’d be nobody else up here.
Elizabeth Warren re-opened fire on Bloomberg: I do think that this really is about leadership and accountability. When the mayor says that he apologized, listen very closely to the apology. The language he used is about stop and frisk. It’s about how it turned out. No, this isn’t about how it turned out. This is about what it was designed to do to begin with. It targeted communities of color. It targeted black and brown men from the beginning. And if you want to issue a real apology, then the apology has to start with the intent of the plan as it was put together and the willful ignorance, day by day by day, of admitting what was happening even as people protested in your own street, shutting out the sounds of people telling you how your own policy was breaking their lives. You need a different apology here, Mr. Mayor.
A moderator asked Bloomberg why he had not yet made public his tax returns.
Michael Bloomberg: Fortunately, I make a lot of money, and we do business all around the world. And we are preparing it. The number of pages will probably be in the thousands of pages. I can’t go to TurboTax. But I put out my tax return every year for 12 years in City Hall. We will put out this one. It tells everybody everything they need to know about every investment that I make and where the money goes.
And the biggest item is all the money I give away. And we list that, every single donation I make. And you can get that from our foundation any time you want.
Amy Klobuchar attacked him on the missing tax returns too. Michael Bloomberg responded: We’ll releasing them. They’ll be out in a few weeks. And that’s just as fast as I can do it. Remember, I only entered into this race 10 weeks ago. All of my associates here have been at this for a couple of years.
Elizabeth Warren had of course to add something: … 10 weeks ago, pay overtime, and get it done.
Michael Bloomberg: I wish it were that simple.
A moderator continued to grill Bloomberg: Let me ask you about something else. Several former employees have claimed that your company was a hostile workplace for women. When you were confronted about it, you admitted making sexually suggestive remarks, saying, quote, “That’s the way I grew up.” In a lawsuit in the 1990s, according to the Washington Post, one former female employee alleged that you said, quote, “I would do you in a second.” Should Democrats expect better from their nominee?
Michael Bloomberg responded: Let me say a couple of things, if I could have my full minute and a quarter, thank you. I have no tolerance for the kind of behavior that the “Me, Too” movement has exposed. And anybody that does anything wrong in our company, we investigate it, and if it’s appropriate, they’re gone that day.
But let me tell you what I do at my company and my foundation and in city government when I was there. In my foundation, the person that runs it’s a woman, 70 percent of the people there are women. In my company, lots and lots of women have big responsibilities. They get paid exactly the same as men. And in my — in City Hall, the person, the top person, my deputy mayor was a woman, and 40 percent of our commissioners were women.
I am very proud of the fact that about two weeks ago we were awarded, we were voted the most — the best place to work, second best place in America. If that doesn’t say something about our employees and how happy they are, I don’t know what does.
Elizabeth Warren added: … I hope you heard what his defense was. “I’ve been nice to some women.” That just doesn’t cut it. The mayor has to stand on his record. And what we need to know is exactly what’s lurking out there. He has gotten some number of women, dozens, who knows, to sign nondisclosure agreements both for sexual harassment and for gender discrimination in the workplace. So, Mr. Mayor, are you willing to release all of those women from those nondisclosure agreements, so we can hear their side of the story?
Michael Bloomberg: We have a very few nondisclosure agreements.
Elizabath Warren: How many is that?
Michael Bloomberg: Let me finish.
Elizabeth Warren insisted: How many is that?
Michael Bloomberg: None of them accuse me of doing anything, other than maybe they didn’t like a joke I told. And let me just — and let me — there’s agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet and that’s up to them. They signed those agreements, and we’ll live with it.
Joe Biden: Come on.
Elizabeth Warren: So, wait, when you say it is up to — I just want to be clear. Some is how many? And — and when you — and when you say they signed them and they wanted them, if they wish now to speak out and tell their side of the story about what it is they allege, that’s now OK with you? You’re releasing them on television tonight? Is that right?
Michael Bloomberg later added: Senator [Warren], the company and somebody else, in this case — a man or a woman or it could be more than that, they decided when they made an agreement they wanted to keep it quiet for everybody’s interests.
Joe Biden: Come on.
Michael Bloomberg: They signed the agreements and that’s what we’re going to live with.
Pete Buttigieg joined the conversation: You could release them now.
Elizabeth Warren shortly afterwards asked: … are the women bound by being muzzled by you and you could release them from that immediately? Because, understand, this is not just a question of the mayor’s character. This is also a question about electability.
We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many nondisclosure agreements and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against. That’s not what we do as Democrats.
Joe Biden later added: … It’s easy. All the mayor has to do is say, “You are released from the nondisclosure agreement,” period. We talk about transparency here. This guy got himself in trouble saying that there was a non — that he couldn’t disclose what he did. He went to his company…
Pete Buttigieg: Just to be super-clear, that was about the list of clients, so nobody gets the wrong idea.
Joe Biden: No, no, no. Yeah, I’m sorry.
After some laughter, Pete Buttigieg added: I know what you mean. No, you’re right.
Joe Biden continued. But he said — he went to the company and said I want to be released, I want to be able to do it. Look, this is about transparency from the very beginning, whether it’s your health record, whether it’s your taxes, whether it’s whether you have cases against you, whether or not people have signed nondisclosure agreements.
You think the women, in fact, were ready to say I don’t want anybody to know about what you did to me? That’s not how it works. The way it works is they say, look, this is what you did to me and the mayor comes along and his attorneys said, I will give you this amount of money if you promise you will never say anything. That’s how it works.
Michael Bloomberg got the chance to answer: I’ve said we’re not going to get — to end these agreements because they were made consensually and they have every right to expect that they will stay private.
This statement earned him boos from the audience.
Joe Biden added: If they want to release it, they should be able to release themselves. Say yes.
Bernie Sanders joined the converation: Can I add a word to this? You know, we talk about electability, and everybody up here wants to beat Trump, and we talk about stop and frisk, and we talked about the workplace that Mayor Bloomberg has established and the problems there.
But maybe we should also ask how Mayor Bloomberg in 2004 supported George W. Bush for president, put money into Republican candidates for the United States Senate when some of us — Joe and I and others — were fighting for Democrats to control the United States Senate.
Joe Biden added: And didn’t support Barack.
Bernie Sanders continued: Maybe we can talk — maybe we can talk about a billionaire saying that we should not raise the minimum wage or that we should cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. If that’s a way to beat Donald Trump, wow, I would be very surprised.
Only later in the Nevada Democratic presidential debate did Mike Bloomberg get the chance to make some good points, for instance when a moderator asked him about his plan to intensify U.S. and international actions to stop the expansion of coal, and how exactly he was going to do that.
Michael Bloomberg: Well, already we’ve closed 304 out of the 530 coal-fired power plants in the United States, and we’ve closed 80 out of the 200 or 300 that are in Europe, Bloomberg Philanthropies, working with the Sierra Club, that’s one of the things you do.
But let’s just start at the beginning. If you’re president, the first thing you do the first day is you rejoin the Paris Agreement. This is just ridiculous for us to drop out.
Two, America’s responsibility is to be the leader in the world. And if we don’t, we’re the ones that are going to get hurt just as much as anybody else. And that’s why I don’t want to have us cut off all relationships with China, because you will never solve this problem without China and India, Western Europe, and America. That’s where most of the greenhouse … I believe — and you can tell my whether this is right — but the solar array that the vice president is talking about is being closed because it’s not economic, that you can put solar panels in into modern technology even more modern than that.
A moderator mentioned that Bloomberg’s business was heavily invested in China, the number one producer in the world of carbon emissions. He asked Bloomberg how far he would go to force China to reduce those emissions and tackle the climate crisis.
Michael Bloomberg responded: Well, you’re not going to go to war with them. You have to negotiate with them and try to — and we’ve seen how well that works with tariffs that are hurting us. What you have to do is convince the Chinese that it is in their interest, as well. Their people are going to die just as our people are going to die. And we’ll work together.
In all fairness, the China has slowed down. It’s India that is an even bigger problem. But it is an enormous problem. Nobody’s doing anything about it. We could right here in America make a big difference. We’re closing the coal-fired power plants. If we could enforce some of the rules on fracking so that they don’t release methane into the air and into the water, you’ll make a big difference.
But we’re not going to get rid of fracking for a while. And we, incidentally not just natural gas. You frack oil, as well. It is a technique, and when it’s done poorly, like they’re doing in too many places where the methane gets out into the air, it is very damaging. But it’s a transition fuel, I think the senator said it right.
We want to go to all renewables. But that’s still many years from now. And we — before I think the senator mentioned 2050 for some data. No scientist thinks the numbers for 2050 are 2050 anymore. They’re 2040, 2035. The world is coming apart faster than any scientific study had predicted. We’ve just got to do something now.
Later, a moderator asked Bloomberga about red-lining.
Mike Bloomberg started (rightly) with he words: As the only one here that started a business, maybe you…
The moderator intervened and said: Mayor Bloomberg, you seemed to imply that red-lining and stopping that is — that stopping red-lining has somehow contributed to the financial crisis.
Michael Bloomberg responded: No, that’s exactly wrong.
The moderator added that this was the implication that came out in his quote, so he wanted to give Bloomberg a chance to clarify this.
Mike Bloomberg said: I’ve been well on the record against red-lining since I worked on Wall Street. I was against during the financial crisis. I’ve been against it since.
The financial crisis came about because the people that took the mortgages, packaged them, and other people bought them, those were — that’s where all the disaster was. Red-lining is still a practice some places, and we’ve got to cut it out. But it’s just not true.
What I was going to say, maybe we want to talk about businesses. I’m the only one here that I think that’s ever started a business. Is that fair? OK.
What we need is — I can tell you in New York City, we had programs, they’re mentoring programs for young businesspeople so they can learn how to start a business. We had programs that could get them seed capital. We had programs to get branch banking in their neighborhoods, because if you don’t have a branch bank there, you can’t get a checking account. You can’t get a checking account, you can’t get a loan. You can’t get a loan, you can’t get a mortgage. Then you don’t have any wealth. There’s ways to fix this. And it doesn’t take trillions of dollars. It takes us to focus on the problems of small businesses.
After some crosstalk, Bernie Sanders said: You know, when we talk about a corrupt political system, bought by billionaires like Mr. Bloomberg, it manifests itself in a tax code in which not only is Amazon and many other major corporations, some owned by the wealthiest people in this country not paying a nickel in taxes, we have the insane situation that billionaires today, if you can believe it, have an effective tax rate lower than the middle class. So maybe, just maybe…
Michael Bloomberg said: But you’re re-writing the tax code. Why are you complaining? Who wrote the code?
Bernie Sanders: You did. You and your campaign…
Mike Bloomberg: You and the other 99 senators.
Bernie Sanders: You and your — not me.
Mike Bloomberg: Oh, come on.
Bernie Sanders: You and your campaign contributions electing people who represent the wealthy and the powerful, those are the folks…
Michael Bloomberg: Yes. Those are the Democrats, thank you.
Bernie Sanders: Well, and Republicans, too. And George W. Bush, as well.
Amy Klobuchar added: I was thinking there was going to be a boxing rematch on Saturday in Vegas and those guys should go down there. Followed by laughter from the audience.
Afterwards, Bloomberg came again under fire from Bernie Sanders: We have a grotesque and immoral distribution of wealth and income. Mike Bloomberg owns more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans. That’s wrong. That’s immoral. That should not be the case when we got a half a million people sleeping out on the street, where we have kids who cannot afford to go to college, when we have 45 million people dealing with student debt.
We have enormous problems facing this country, and we cannot continue seeing a situation where, in the last three years, billionaires in this country saw an $850 billion increase in their wealth — congratulations, Mr. Bloomberg — but the average American last year saw less than a 1 percent increase in his or her income. That’s wrong.
After applause from the audience, Michael Bloomberg was allowed to respond: I can’t speak for all billionaires. All I know is I’ve been very lucky, made a lot of money, and I’m giving it all away to make this country better. And a good chunk of it goes to the Democratic Party, as well.
He also got some applause. A moderator then asked Bloomberg if he had earned too much, if it had been an obscene amount, if he should have earned that much money.
Mike Bloomberg answered: Yes. I worked very hard for it. And I’m giving it away.
Bernie Sanders later attacked Bloomberg again: … What we need to do to deal with this grotesque level of income and wealth inequality is make sure that those people who are working — you know what, Mr. Bloomberg, it wasn’t you who made all that money. Maybe your workers played some role in that, as well.
And it is important that those workers are able to share the benefits, also. When we have so many people who go to work every day and they feel not good about their jobs, they feel like cogs in a machine. I want workers to be able to sit on corporate boards, as well, so they can have some say over what happens to their lives.
A moderator asked Bloomberg, who owns a large company, whether he would support what Sanders was proposing.
Mike Bloomberg rightly answered: Absolutely not. I can’t think of a ways that would make it easier for Donald Trump to get re-elected than listening to this conversation.
He got some applause for this, before he (rightly) continued with the words: It’s ridiculous. We’re not going to throw out capitalism. We tried. Other countries tried that. It was called communism, and it just didn’t work.
Bernie Sanders later come back on the subject: … Let’s talk about democratic socialism. Not communism, Mr. Bloomberg. That’s a cheap shot. Let’s talk about — let’s talk about what goes on in countries like Denmark, where Pete correctly pointed out they have a much higher quality of life in many respects than we do. What are we talking about?
We are living in many ways in a socialist society right now. The problem is, as Dr. Martin Luther King reminded us, we have socialism for the very rich, rugged individualism for the poor. … When Donald Trump gets $800 million in tax breaks and subsidies to build luxury condominiums, that’s socialism for the rich. … When Walmart — we have to subsidize Walmart’s workers who are on Medicaid and food stamps because the wealthiest family in America pays starvation wages, that’s socialism for the rich. I believe in democratic socialism for working people, not billionaires, health care for all, educational opportunities for all. … Creating a government that works for all, not just for Mr. Bloomberg.
Michael Bloomberg commented: What a wonderful country we have. The best known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses. What did I miss here?
Sanders: Well, you’ll miss that I work in Washington, house one.
Bloomberg: That’s the first problem.
Sanders: Live in Burlington, house two.
Bloomberg: That’s good.
Sanders: And like thousands of other Vermonters, I do have a summer camp. Forgive me for that. Where is your home? Which tax haven do you have your home?
Bloomberg: New York City, thank you very much, and I pay all my taxes. And I’m happy to do it because I get something for it. And let me say, I thought the senator next to me was half right.
Bloomberg added: I agree we should raise taxes on the — I disagree with the senator on the wealth tax but I do agree with her that the rich aren’t paying their fair share. We should raise taxes on the rich. I did that as mayor in New York City. I raised taxes. And if you take a look at my plans, the first thing I would do is try to convince Congress, because they’ve got to do it, we can’t just order it, to roll back the tax cuts that the Trump administration put in with the — through Congress.
A moderator later pointed out to the fact that, in 2018, Michael Bloomberg had been the biggest outside spender helping Democrats running for Congress. He had also donated billions toward causes like climate change, gun safety, education. He asked Pete Buttigieg, if his money wasn’t a problem then, why is it a problem now?
Pete Buttigieg: Oh, I think he should absolutely be doing everything in his power to defeat Donald Trump. I just don’t think that has to result in him becoming the president of the United States.
Look, our party has values. We were built around values like making sure we protect working people. But Mayor Bloomberg opposed raising the minimum wage. Our party has a tradition that includes excellent presidents like Barack Obama, who Mayor Bloomberg opposed.
At the end of the day, it’s not just about how much money you’ve got. It’s what you stand for. And we are living in a moment when Americans are so deeply frustrated with the way that both Wall Street and Washington seem to have overlooked our lives.
The view from the porch of my one house in Indiana… [laughter] … is that they can’t even see us sometimes. And if we’re going into the election of our lives against a president who rose to power by cynically exploiting the frustration of ordinary Americans feeling like leaders weren’t speaking to them, then I think that turning to someone like Mayor Bloomberg, who thinks he can buy this election, is no better a way to succeed than turning to somebody like Senator Sanders who wants to burn the house down.
In his closing statement, Michael Bloomberg said: Well, you can join me at mikebloomberg.com, too, if you want, but I’m not asking for any money. [LAUGHTER]. Look, this is a management job, and Donald Trump’s not a manager. This is a job where you have to build teams. He doesn’t have a team so he goes and makes decisions without knowing what’s going on or the implications of what he does. We cannot run the railroad this way.
This country has to pull together and understand that the people that we elect — and it’s not just the president of the United States — they should have experience, they should have credentials, they should understand what they’re doing and the implications thereof.
And then we should as a society try to hold them accountable so the next time they go before the voters, if they haven’t done the job, we shouldn’t just say, oh, nice person, gives a good speech. We should say, didn’t do the job and you’re out of here.
In short, in the 2020 Nevada debate, Michael Bloomberg came under fire from fellow Democrats largely because he has a real chance to become the party’s presidential candidate. He is the only contender with substantial executive accomplishments both as a CEO and as a successful, former mayor of New York City. At the same time, he could expect the attacks on him and his record. He should have been better prepared.
Other takeaways of the debate: Pete Buttigieg (successfully) went several times after Amy Klobuchar, a direct (but weaker) rival on the “moderate” side of the Democratic Party. Joe Biden looked better than in past debates and positioned himself again as a serious “moderate” candidate.
With Bloomberg, Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar all fighting for the centrist vote, Bernie Sanders could have a “boulevard” ahead of him because, on the left of the party, Elizabeth Warren looks weak. Trump vs. Sanders, that’s not really the duel centrist voters are looking for. We will have to wait until after Super Tuesday for the field to clear up. Bloomberg has no money problem. All the others have to show to their donors that they still have a shot at the presidency.
Some related books to read:
Eleanor Randolph: The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg. Simon & Schuster, September 2019, 480 pages. Order the Kindle eBook from Amazon.com. Order the hardcover edition from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr.
Bernie Sanders: Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. Thomas Dunne Books, November 2016, 461 pages. Order the Kindle eBook from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk. Order the paperback edition from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de.
Bernie Sanders: Where We Go from Here. Two Years in the Resistance. Thomas Dunne Books, November 2018, 284 pages. Order the Kindle eBook from Amazon.com. Order the paperback re-print edition from September 2019 from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk.
Article added at 18:07 Berlin time.
