After months of hand-wringing over how it would cover its boss, Bloomberg News ran a story questioning how 2020 Democrat Michael Bloomberg would pay for campaign spending promises.
Bloomberg News reported over the weekend that the billionaire co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg LP’s delay in putting out his tax plan was fueling uncertainty regarding how he would pay for the pitches he is making to Democrats. Since announcing his candidacy for the White House in November, Bloomberg, 77, has rolled out proposals such as $1.5 trillion healthcare and $1.2 trillion infrastructure platforms.
“The media has started to notice, as one recent Associated Press article led off by noting the lack of details about paying for a promise to create millions of new jobs,” Bloomberg News reporter Mark Niquette wrote.
The suspense, which his campaign anticipates could end as soon as this week, is not usual in either primary or general elections. But Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, for example, has struggled to regain momentum behind her presidential bid after she came under pressure to reveal how she would fund her version of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for all.”
Bloomberg’s decisions both to seek the 2020 Democratic nomination and curtail Bloomberg News reporters’ ability to investigate his rivals, extending his policy of banning stories on his family or foundation, was met with derision from his staff and former employees — but was defended by Bloomberg.
“They get a paycheck. But with your paycheck comes some restrictions and responsibilities,” he told CBS News last December.
The new editorial guidelines, under which President Trump remained fair game, also drew criticism from the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, which announced it would no longer issue his reporters with press credentials to their events.
Bloomberg owning a news outlet has caused political friction every time he has flirted with the idea of seeking the Oval Office. In 2018, he told Radio Iowa that he would consider selling the business, placing it in a blind trust, or redirecting coverage away from politics should he enter the 2020 race.
Transparency is quickly becoming an issue for Bloomberg as Iowa’s Feb. 3 first-in-the-nation caucuses draw closer.
Although the former three-term, Republican-turned-independent New York City mayor isn’t focusing on the early voting states in February, he has faced similar scrutiny for requesting a Federal Election Commission extension so that he does not have to disclose financial information until after “Super Tuesday” on March 3.
Bloomberg News’s reporting over the weekend received mixed reactions online.
Well, he’s truly a Democrat now
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) January 25, 2020
Et, tu Brute?
— Steve Saperstein (@SteveSaperstein) January 25, 2020
Little is known about what Bloomberg has in the works for his tax plan. The philanthropist has indicated he supports “taxing wealthy people like me” but has been vocal in his belief that Sanders’s and Warren’s tax proposals are too punitive against billionaires such as himself.
