New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) slammed his predecessor Michael Bloomberg, who is mulling a presidential bid, contending that the Democrat Party should not nominate “a billionaire who epitomizes the status quo.”
De Blasio, who ended his short-lived presidential campaign in September, did not mince words on Bloomberg’s consideration to jump into the presidential ring, pointing to the billionaire’s tenure as a mayor and contending that he was out-of-touch with regular people in New York City.
“When he was mayor he had no understanding of the inequality crisis. I think he was absolutely tone deaf to what working people are going through in this city,” de Blasio told reporters on Monday.
While de Blasio said Bloomberg would be better than President Trump, he said the Democrat Party should not “nominate a billionaire who epitomizes the status quo.”
“Would he be better than Donald Trump? Of course. Should he be the Democratic nominee? No,” he stated. “This is a Democratic Party today that’s getting more progressive, that wants to address the concerns of working people, that does not accept the status quo.”
“There’s no way in the world we should nominate a billionaire who epitomizes the status quo,” de Blasio, whose net worth exceeds $1 million, continued.
“I’m objective about the fact that there were some things he did well,” he added. “I can certainly prefer him over Donald Trump. But does he represent today’s Democratic Party? Of course not, not even close.”
Bloomberg, who would reportedly focus on Super Tuesday states rather than New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada, has not received a warm welcome from Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
“Our campaign is going to end the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality which exists in America today. So tonight, we say to Michael Bloomberg and other billionaires, ‘Sorry, you ain’t going to buy this election,’” Sanders said during a rally in Iowa over the weekend:
“Welcome to the race, @MikeBloomberg!” Warren wrote upon the reports of his impending entry.
“If you’re looking for policy plans that will make a huge difference for working people and which are very popular, start here,” she wrote, providing a link to her calculator “for the billionaires”:
As Breitbart News noted, Bloomberg’s possibly entry — as well as the rumored considerations of Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, and Patrick Deval — is largely demonstrative of the deepening panic among establishment Democrats over the state of the current Democrat field.