The Nicknamer-in-Chief is at it again.
After word broke that Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, is mulling whether to jump into the 2020 race for the Democratic presidential nomination, President Trump weighed in.
“Little Michael will fail,” Trump said Friday outside the White House as he headed to the Marine One helicopter on his way to a fundraising trip in Georgia. “There’s nobody I’d rather run against than Little Michael.”
“I‘ve known Michael Bloomberg for a long time. He said a lot of great things about Trump. But I know Michael. He became just a nothing. He’s not going to do well, but I think he’s going to hurt [Joe] Biden, actually,” Trump said.
“But he doesn’t have the magic to do well. … He’ll spend a lot of money. He has some really big issues, some personal problems, and he’s got a lot of other problems. But I know Michael Bloomberg fairly well. Not too well, but fairly well. Well enough. He will not do well. And if he did [enter the race], I’d be happy.”
The Democratic nomination is in flux just months before voters cast their first ballots in the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses. Biden, the former vice president, was expected to quickly lock up the nomination, but his campaign has flagged as the 76-year-old has stumbled. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have both moved up in the polls. Rumors are also swirling that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might enter the race.
In April, Bloomberg announced he would not join the race. “His advisers, at the time, privately shared their analysis that there wasn’t room for another centrist like Bloomberg with Biden in the race,” the Associated Press wrote on Friday.
What a difference seven months makes.
The former vice president showed vulnerability in his campaign’s earliest days with a series of flubs and uneven performances that bothered his establishment allies. Still, Biden led in virtually every poll for much of the year because of the persistent belief that he was the most electable Democrat in a head-to-head matchup against Trump.
A turning point came last month when Biden released a weak third-quarter fundraising report that undermined a supposed strength, raising serious questions about the extent of his support from the party’s power brokers. And in recent weeks, a series of underwhelming polls in Iowa and New Hampshire suggested that Biden is falling behind in the states that typically matter most in primary politics.
Bloomberg, at 77 years old, is the oldest of them all. But he’s also one of the world’s richest men, with an estimated net worth topping $50 billion. He could finance his own race if he chose to do so.
In recent days, Bloomberg moved to qualify for the presidential primary ballot in Alabama, which has the earliest filing deadline — today.
Said the New York Post:
“He thinks Biden is weak and [Bernie] Sanders and Warren can’t win,” said a source familiar with Bloomberg’s apparent about-face, which comes just months after the three-term New York City mayor took his name out of consideration.
“Mike will be making a decision quickly,” said another source close to the media mogul as other sources said the decision to jump into the crowded Democratic field could come within the next few days.
