In 2019, Michael Bloomberg Said He Was Too Old to Run for President

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in March 2019 that he was too old to run for president and said it would be “virtually impossible” to win the Democrat nomination.

“At some point, you gotta say, ‘Look, I would be 79 years old when I took office,’” Bloomberg said in a conversation with Bermuda Premier David Burt and AIG CEO Brian Duperreault at Bermuda’s New York Forum.

Bloomberg noted that people reminded him that Ronald Reagan was also president at the age of 80.

“Yeah, when he was 80 they carried him out ga-ga,” he said about Reagan as the audience laughed.

Bloomberg said he considered running for president but cited his age as a top concern.

“To start a four-year job, maybe an eight-year job, at age 79 may not be the smartest thing to do,” he said. “But I think if I thought I could win I would’ve, I just couldn’t see a path where I could get the nomination and spend the next year and a half, two years of my life campaigning.”

He explained that there was no chance of running against President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence in the Republican primary and that the Democrat Party had moved too far to the left.

He described it as “almost inconceivable” or “virtually impossible” for him to win the Democrat nomination.

“On the Democratic side, it is a party that has moved very far left, and my views are much more centralist,” he said, adding there was “no way” of reconciling his views on education or fighting drugs with the current party platform.

But Bloomberg derisively suggested that it might be possible to win the Democrat primary if he went on an “apology tour.”

“It’s just not going to happen on a national level for someone like me, starting where I am, unless I was willing to change all my views and go on what CNN called an apology tour,” he said.

He ridiculed former Vice President Joe Biden for walking back his views on everything in his political career.

“Joe Biden went out and apologized for being male, over 50, white; he apologized for the one piece of legislation, which is actually pretty good, the anti-crime bill,” he said.

Bloomberg also mocked former Rep. Beto O’Rourke who at the time was still running for president.

“Everybody else, Beto, or whatever his name is, he’s apologized for being born,” Bloomberg said as the crowd laughed.

A YouTube video of Bloomberg’s comments were immediately made private after Breitbart News transcribed them.

Other videos from the event from Bermuda Broadcasting remain online, including a joke about the history of colonial oppression of Bermuda by Great Britain.

“Be careful. I was married to a Brit for 20 years; I know about colonial oppression,” Bloomberg said as the audience laughed.