Mike Bloomberg on Trump’s Job Performance
So often people talk about the Democratic Party as the party of pluralist, pie-in-the-sky idealism and the Republican Party as the party of practical, results-driven business.
At last night’s Democratic National Convention, though, one of the world’s most successful, results-driven business leaders, Michael Bloomberg, made some key points.
Bloomberg, of course, is not just a great businessman, but also an experienced and accomplished public servant. For 12 years, he served as the mayor of New York City, and like any New Yorker, he knows how to spot a con.
The last time he spoke at the Democratic Convention in 2016, in fact, he told us exactly where we as a country would be with Donald Trump as our president. “Trump says he wants to run the nation like he runs his business,” Mayor Bloomberg said then. “God help us.”
He knew where we were headed because he knew Trump’s history. The thousands of lawsuits. The six bankruptcies. The predatory grift of Trump University. The imaginary PR people feeding fake gossip to reporters. The non-stop lying, cheating, and corruption.
As prescient as Mayor Bloomberg was, I doubt even he imagined things would get as bad as they’ve gotten. As he said in his speech last night, Trump has failed the American people catastrophically.
The pandemic is global, and countries everywhere have suffered great losses. But on August 19th, Germany recorded 7 deaths, Italy had 7, the U.K. had 16, and France had 17. The U.S. had 1369, but according to Trump, he’s doing an “incredible” job.
As America endures week after week of 1000-plus COVID-19 deaths a day, we still have higher unemployment numbers than we’ve had in 70 years. 30 to 40 million people are at risk of eviction over the next several months.
That’s why, as Mayor Bloomberg said in his speech, this election really isn’t about Trump’s character or temperament — deficient as they are. It’s about his job performance. After three-plus years, it’s time for a job review.
On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump bragged that he was a builder who would bring the results-oriented approach of a successful businessman to government, starting with his big beautiful border wall.
Instead, Trump’s mostly been a talker and a tweeter, not a doer. When he does do things, he’s been a dismantler, not a builder — chipping away at the Affordable Care Act, rolling back environmental regulations even as the impacts of climate change grow more costly, and most lately, shrinking the U.S. Postal Service.
After four years, it’s time to part ways with this so-called businessman and move forward with a leader who has a real track record of growth and accomplishment as a public servant: Joe Biden.
As Mayor Bloomberg pointed out, Joe Biden and Barack Obama created more jobs over their last three years in office than Team Trump did in its first three, and achieved higher economic growth as well.
As vice president from 2008 to 2016, Joe Biden played key roles in expanding healthcare to 20 million Americans and creating the conditions for 75 straight months of job expansion.
As president, Joe will draw on this experience to lead America’s recovery from the wreckage of Trump. Along with his experience, he’ll bring the right perspective too — including a commitment to work on behalf of all Americans, not just a handful of hedge fund managers and real-estate moguls.
As Mayor Bloomberg so aptly put it, while Trump looks backwards, and sees immigrants as enemies and while supremacists as allies, Joe looks forward and sees strength in America’s diversity.
In a time of cataclysmic change and uncertainty, that forward-looking orientation is key to the job at hand. We need someone who fundamentally believes that America’s best days lie ahead of us, not behind us. We need someone who embraces change and adaptation instead of reflexively grasping to preserve the past. We need someone who recognizes that in a more tightly connected world, where opportunities and threats alike spread at dizzying speeds, collaboration and mutual reciprocity are the keys to prosperity and security.
That person is Joe Biden. The opposite of that person is Donald Trump. The right choice for the job has never been easier to make.
