Earlier today, Sean Hannity previewed his exclusive interview with Donald Trump that will air this evening. There might be news in there, I wouldn’t hold my breath, but there is definite hilarity.
In the interview it becomes quite clear that the White House is starting to size Mike Bloomberg up as a potential opponent in the 2020 campaign. As I noted back in November when Bloomberg first announced, he could very well buy the nomination.
I think there is a certain sophistication to his strategy. If Bloomberg enters the race for the early states now, his money does him no good and the surgical removal of his personality is a killer. If he waits until Super Tuesday to jump in, then his money is all that’s important. Plus the more people see Elizabeth Warren the less they like her, Bernie Sanders could easily be a corpse by then, and Joe Biden will be in a state of collapse. Bloomberg obviously thinks that he can pick up the wreckage of Biden’s campaign plus appeal to suburban voters who are hearing their 401(k) plans scream for mercy at the thought of Warren winning. He can essentially rope-a-dope the top figures in the pack and present himself as the moderate, centrist candidate after they’ve shown just how far left and anti-American they are.
And that is exactly what Bloomberg is doing. This is the equivalent of buying the pot in a poker hand.
2020 ad spend update (incl. future ad reservations):
Bloomberg: $286.5 million
Steyer: $169.4 million
Sanders: $31 million
Buttigieg: $27.9 million
Warren: $21.2 million
Yang: $13 million
Biden: $11.8 million
Klobuchar: $8.5 million
Gabbard: $4.5 millionTrump: $53.4 million
— David Wright (@DavidWright_7) January 30, 2020
The fact that the DNC is changing their rules to help Bloomberg and hurt Sanders is a clue that the Democrat establishment has looked at the field and decided that Mike Bloomberg is their best bet to avoid a thorough drubbing in November.
Hold up: DNC rule change helps Bloomberg? Very sad that Julian Castro and Cory Booker (and Kamala Harris) aren’t on the debate stage. But now the threshold on grassroots supporters gets thrown out so Bloomberg can buy his way into the convo? Doesn’t seem very democratic. pic.twitter.com/GCg4gymDsa
— Aisha C. Mills (@AishaMoodMills) February 2, 2020
This is the promo that Hannity highlighted:
The first clip from Sean Hannity's big interview with the president features POTUS talking about Michael Bloomberg's height. pic.twitter.com/iRdX3fFUTg
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 2, 2020
HANNITY: What do you think about Mayor Bloomberg?
TRUMP: Very little. I just think of little. You know, now he wants a box for the debates to stand on. OK. It’s OK. There’s nothing wrong. You can be short. Why should he get a box to stand on. He wants a box for the debates. Why should he be entitled? Does that mean everyone else gets a box?
Cory Booker and all these people couldn’t get all the things that Bloomberg’s getting now. But, I think it’s very unfair for the Democrats. But I would love to run against Bloomberg. I would love it.
“The president is lying,” Bloomberg campaign spokesperson Julie Wood said in a statement. “He is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan.”
The former mayor echoed his spokesperson’s remarks, saying that Trump “lies about everything so you shouldn’t be surprised that he said things like that.”
“I stand twice as tall as he does on the stage that matters,” he added.
This is not an auspicious start for Team Bloomberg. A man with a reputation as a humorless drone whose claim to fame was attempting to ban fun in New York City coming off as thin-skinned and sort of bitchy is not a good look.
Bloomberg claims to be 5’8″. I’ve never put a tape measure on the little fella but when I went searching for images of him and Trump together from New York days, like this one, Bloombberg comes up to just below Trump’s eyes.
This isn not going away because the media won’t let it. Any statement made by Trump has to be ‘fact checked’ and this is no different possibly leading to the most epic chyron in the history of television:
https://twitter.com/farhip/status/1224016349174927362
Based on this, I think it is pretty clear that Bloomberg is petulant, unused to being directly criticized, and entitled. Not only was Trump able to nourish the perception that the DNC is treating Bloomberg special because of his money, he’s also dragging Bloomberg into the public exchanges of insults that Trump revels in.
Back in 1974, a local DC paper called ‘New Times’ did an early version of a listicle naming the ten dumbest members of Congress. Number One on the list, Virginia Senator William Scott, held a press conference to deny he was the dumbest member of Congress and threatening to sue the paper…thereby proving their point. If we eventually see Bloomberg demanding to be publicly measured, I would not be the least surprised.
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