Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders came out swinging against his potential rival Michael Bloomberg at a campaign stop in Iowa, per The Washington Post . Though the former New York mayor has not officially declared his candidacy for president of the United States, he has filed some necessary paperwork, prompting rife speculation about his intentions.
That said, the senator from Vermont has made it clear that he is not happy about the prospect of a Bloomberg run. A large portion of Sanders’ disapproval lies in Bloomberg’s personal wealth.
As the inventor of the self-titled Bloomberg terminal, the 77-year-old revolutionized trading by bringing it into the digital world, and the technology is still nearly ubiquitous in places like Wall Street today. Accordingly, it has made Bloomberg incredibly wealthy, with an estimated net worth of $53 billion, making him one of the top 15 richest people in the world.
Sanders, meanwhile, has been open about his reported socialist background and has voiced his belief that such wealth should not exist in the United States.
“Billionaires should not exist,” he once proclaimed on Twitter .
Accordingly, Sanders slammed the former mayor for believing that his money would allow him to sway voters.
“Tonight we say to Michael Bloomberg and other billionaires: Sorry, you ain’t gonna buy this election,” the Brooklyn native proclaimed.
Sanders then went onto slam the rumor that Bloomberg and his team would skip early voting states to focus instead on Super Tuesday ones. Bloomberg’s team reportedly believes that it would be too difficult to compete with candidates that have been on the ground in places like Iowa and New Hampshire for months and is hoping they will be on more equal footing in states that have not yet received as much attention.
However, Sanders claimed that this move was just another example of what he called the arrogance of billionaires.
“You’re not going to get elected president by avoiding Iowa, by avoiding New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada,” Sanders said to an enthusiastic crowd
“You’re not go to buy this election by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on media in California. Those days are gone.”
Sanders also slammed Bloomberg’s lack of interest in talking to constituents of states that were not politically beneficial to him.
“What this campaign is about is understanding that the working families of this country are sick and tired of working longer hours for lower wages… and income goes to the top one percent,” Sanders added.
“I say to Michael Bloomberg and his billionaire friends: That is going to change,” he exclaimed to a cheering crowd.
Sanders was not the only Democratic presidential candidate to begin attacking the billionaire. As previously reported by The Inquisitr , Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar also had some strong words for the late entrant, claiming that she didn’t think Bloomberg could just “waltz in” to the competitive race.
