Trump Savages Bloomberg's Debate Showing: 'Perhaps the Worst in the History of Debates'
President Donald Trump mocked former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s debate performance in a late-night Wednesday tweet.
“Mini Mike Bloomberg’s debate performance tonight was perhaps the worst in the history of debates, and there have been some really bad ones,” Trump tweeted.
“He was stumbling, bumbling and grossly incompetent. If this doesn’t knock him out of the race, nothing will.”
Mini Mike Bloomberg’s debate performance tonight was perhaps the worst in the history of debates, and there have been some really bad ones. He was stumbling, bumbling and grossly incompetent. If this doesn’t knock him out of the race, nothing will. Not so easy to do what I did!
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As Trump pointed out, Bloomberg took a beating from his fellow Democrats on the 2020 presidential primary debate stage in Las Vegas on Wednesday night. Rising in the polls to third place with 16.1 percent support, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, placed a target on the former mayor’s back.
The five other candidates on stage did not hold back in their attacks.
“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against: a billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians,'” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said.
“No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump,” she said. “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 supporting racist policies like redlining and stop-and-frisk.”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also criticized the “stop-and-frisk” policy Bloomberg implemented as mayor, under which people could be stopped and searched by police without warrants. In a 2015 speech, Bloomberg defended the policy and acknowledged that it disproportionately targeted the city’s black and Latino population, according to CBS News.
“In order to beat Donald Trump, we are going to need the largest voter turnout in the history of the United States,” Sanders said.
“Mr. Bloomberg had policies in New York City of stop-and-frisk, which went after African-American and Latino people in an outrageous way. That is not a way you’re gonna grow voter turnout.”
Bloomberg repeated his apology for the policy, saying it is the “one thing I am really worried about, embarrassed about” from his time in office, CNBC reported.
Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg accused Bloomberg of being “a billionaire who thinks money ought to be the root of all power” and “wants to buy the party out,” as shown by the money Bloomberg has spent on his campaign.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar renewed her accusation that Bloomberg was hiding behind his millions of dollars spent on campaign ads.
“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,” Klobuchar said, according to New York Post.
Warren also called out the former mayor for his “who knows how many nondisclosure agreements” signed by women who worked for his company, Bloomberg LP, stemming from sexual harassment allegations.
“None of them accuse me of doing anything other than maybe they didn’t like a joke I told,” Bloomberg said.
Trump also criticized Bloomberg during his re-election campaign rally in Phoenix, Fox News reported.
“Now they have a new member of the crew, Mini Mike. No boxes, we call him ‘no boxes,'” the president said, referring to Bloomberg’s denial of Trump’s joking statement that the former mayor wanted to stand on a box during the debate.
“I hear he’s getting pounded tonight,” Trump told the crowd.
The president wasn’t alone in that assessment. As Fox News reported Thursday, even many liberal pundits declared Bloomberg’s debate performance a disaster.
