RENO, Nev. — Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s presidential marketing campaign, which has largely targeted its assaults on President Trump, on Mo
RENO, Nev. — Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s presidential marketing campaign, which has largely targeted its assaults on President Trump, on Monday mounted a frontal offensive in opposition to one among his Democratic rivals for the primary time, evaluating Senator Bernie Sanders’s marketing campaign techniques with these employed by the president.
Mr. Sanders struck again at a marketing campaign rally later within the afternoon, drawing comparisons between Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Trump. However Mr. Bloomberg was not alone in focusing on the Vermont liberal: Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in a tv interview, known as on Mr. Sanders to disavow assaults by a few of his supporters on officers at a Nevada labor union, conduct that Mr. Biden stated was “Trump-like.”
The broadsides between the three Democratic candidates got here as the sphere regarded towards the caucuses on Saturday in Nevada, the place early voting has already begun. Mr. Bloomberg, nevertheless, is skipping that contest, and Mr. Sanders’s rally was in California, which votes on Tremendous Tuesday, March 3.
Mr. Biden, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Elizabeth Warren held marketing campaign occasions on Monday in Nevada, the place they’re making an attempt to cease the political momentum of Mr. Sanders, who led a recent poll of doubtless caucusgoers.
Mr. Bloomberg’s marketing campaign started the day by posting a video cataloging cases of on-line aggression and threats from Sanders supporters towards rival Democrats, then adopted with an announcement providing an unflattering comparability of Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump.
“It’s a shameful flip of occasions to see Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump deploy the exact same assaults and techniques in opposition to Mike, however the reason being clear,” stated Kevin Sheekey, Mr. Bloomberg’s marketing campaign supervisor. “At this level, the first is Bernie’s to lose, and ours to win. Bernie is aware of this. Trump is aware of this. That’s why they’re united within the marketing campaign in opposition to Mike.”
The Bloomberg marketing campaign assertion detailed a half-dozen anti-Bloomberg statements from Sanders surrogates and workers, calling them “unacceptable.” One, a tweet from the Sanders marketing campaign’s nationwide press secretary, Briahna Pleasure Grey, known as Mr. Bloomberg a “racist authoritarian.”
However lots of the candidates, together with Mr. Sanders himself, whereas stopping wanting calling Mr. Bloomberg himself a racist, have criticized his assist as mayor of New York for stop-and-frisk policing — a tactic that disproportionately focused black and Latino younger males.
Mr. Sanders himself has been on the forefront of Democratic angst about Mr. Bloomberg’s candidacy. Campaigning in Richmond, Calif., on Monday, Mr. Sanders stated each Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Trump relied on their private wealth to prop up their campaigns.
“It isn’t solely a rigged financial system, it’s a corrupt political system,” Mr. Sanders stated. “It’s a system that permits billionaires like Trump to get large quantities of marketing campaign contributions from his millionaire pals. Mr. Bloomberg, like anyone else, has a proper to run for president. He doesn’t have a proper to purchase the presidency. Particularly after being mayor of New York and having a racist stop-and-frisk coverage, particularly after opposing a elevate within the minimal wage.”
Mr. Sanders’s Twitter account straight responded to the Bloomberg marketing campaign assertion, posting a photograph of Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Trump at a golf outing in 2007.
Mr. Biden took intention at each Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Sanders in an interview on MSNBC, suggesting that each candidates have been simply starting to get the type of scrutiny that Mr. Biden has obtained since coming into the race.
Mr. Biden stated that Mr. Bloomberg “should buy each advert he desires, however he can’t, actually, wipe away his report,” citing the stop-and-frisk policing techniques as one instance.
Mr. Biden jabbed Mr. Sanders over numerous topics, together with his votes within the 1990s in opposition to the Brady Invoice, which required background checks for gun purchases, and his assist of a 2005 invoice that shielded gun producers from legal responsibility lawsuits.
He argued that Mr. Sanders’s signature proposal, “Medicare for all,” was expensive and lacked assist in Congress, and questioned Mr. Sanders’s capacity to defeat Mr. Trump, asking, “Is Bernie, a democratic socialist, an excellent man, is he most definitely to defeat Donald Trump?”
Mr. Biden additionally stated that assaults by a few of Mr. Sanders’s supporters on officers on the highly effective Culinary Staff Union Native 226 have been “Trump-like.” That union has declined to endorse a candidate within the race, nevertheless it opposes Mr. Sanders’s “Medicare for all” proposal.
One union official stated she had obtained lots of of messages from Sanders supporters with insults and threats; Mr. Sanders responded with an announcement urging “supporters of all campaigns to not interact in bullying or ugly private assaults.”
Within the interview, Mr. Biden was pressed on whether or not Mr. Sanders was being Trump-like in his response to his supporters’ assaults. Mr. Biden didn’t straight reply, however stated, “It’s one thing that…