At the Democratic presidential primary debate Tuesday evening in Charleston, South Carolina, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a harsh stance against former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s past support of Republican candidates, while rejecting his claim that he’s the only candidate who could beat President Donald Trump.

Warren’s comments came in response to a question about her previous remarks that Bloomberg was “not the safest candidate” to take on Trump, but rather “the riskiest candidate.” When moderator Gayle King asked Warren to clarify what she meant by that remark, Warren turned to Bloomberg’s past history as a Republican.

Bloomberg was registered as Democrat for years before switching to the Republican Party in 2001, when he decided to run to succeed Rudy Giuliani as mayor of New York City. In 2007, about halfway through his time as mayor, he switched to independent.

He rejoined the Democratic Party very recently — in October 2019, just before announcing his presidential ambitions — and as Warren noted, Bloomberg has spent many of the preceding years using a portion of his billions to fund a long list of Republican candidates.

Warren pointed out that Bloomberg had donated to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham — a staunch ally of the president, who would be benefiting from a fundraiser hosted by Trump in Charleston later this week.

“And that’s not the only right-wing senator that Mayor Bloomberg has funded,” continued Warren. “In 2016, he dumped $12 million into the Pennsylvania Senate race to help re-elect an antichoice, right-wing Republican senator. And I just want to say, the [Democratic] woman challenger was terrific. She lost by a single point.”

Warren also took issue with Bloomberg donating to her 2012 opponent, former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. “In 2012, he scooped in to try to defend another Republican senator against a woman challenger. That was me. It didn’t work, but he tried hard.”

It was this history of supporting so many Republicans, said Warren, that meant that he could not win over the Democratic base:

I don’t care how much money Mayor Bloomberg has. The core of the Democratic Party will never trust him. He has not earned their trust. I will. And the fact that he cannot earn the trust of the core of the Democratic Party means he is the riskiest candidate standing on tis stage.

Bloomberg was given the chance to respond, and turned to his standard talking points, saying that he had “been training for this job” since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that he had run a city which was the same size, even bigger, than most countries in the world.

“I’m the one choice that makes some sense. I have the experience. I have the resources.”

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2SZQBeI