Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Monday took another shot at billionaire Michael Bloomberg, remarking that the “dumbest person on Earth” could run for president if they had billions of dollars.
Sanders is continuing to launch pointed attacks at Bloomberg’s last-minute presidential bid, writing on Twitter on Monday that the “dumbest person on Earth” could run for president as long as they had “a couple billion dollars.”
“If you had a couple billion dollars, you could announce your candidacy for president and be taken seriously, even if you were the dumbest person on Earth,” Sanders wrote in a veiled shot at Bloomberg.
“Billionaires should not be able to buy our elections, and we’re going to change that,” he added:
Data obtained by Axios revealed that Bloomberg has been overshadowing most in the 2020 field in terms of cable news coverage, seeing over twice as many mentions on cable news than Andrew Yang (D) has received throughout the course of his entire presidential bid – 4,486 mentions to 2,167, per Axios.
Sanders issued a strong critique of Bloomberg’s over $30 million ad blitz, calling it “the latest example of a rigged political system that we are going to change when we’re in the White House.”
“I’m disgusted by the idea that Michael Bloomberg or any other billionaire thinks they can circumvent the political process and spend tens of millions of dollars to buy our elections,” Sanders said in a statement following the news of Bloomberg’s massive ad buy.
“If you can’t build grassroots support for your candidacy, you have no business running for president,” he continued. “The American people are sick and tired of the power of billionaires, and I suspect they won’t react well to someone trying to buy an election.”
Sanders’ latest remarks follow reports of Bloomberg spending $300,000 on ads in Oklahoma, where Sanders has led in fundraising among the Democrat 2020 field.
The current Real Clear Politics average shows Sanders in second place with 16.6 percent support to Bloomberg’s 2.8 percent.