“I’m Spending All My Money To Get Rid Of Trump”: Bloomberg

U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg told Reuters over the weekend that his “number one priority is to get rid of Donald Trump. I’m spending all my money to get rid of Trump.”

Bloomberg spoke to Reuters on his campaign bus as he toured a 300 mile stretch of Texas on Saturday. He made several campaign stops where he drew several hundred people in Austin and even fewer in San Antonio. Many of the folks who attended said they were independents and recovering Trump supporters who had learned about Bloomberg through his massive advertising campaign on television.

“He’s better than Trump,” said Marcelo Montemayor, 75, who attended a Bloomberg gathering at a Taco restaurant in San Antonio.

Montemayor told Reuters he voted for Trump but worried the president’s ultra-conservative appointees to federal courts could threaten abortion rights.

Former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg making his pitch to voters in Texas this weekend. He’s on a bus tour making stops in San Antonio, San Marcos, Austin, Waco, and Dallas. Follow @kellyfphares for more! pic.twitter.com/6Xob4fln6W

— Madeleine Rivera (@MRiveraFoxNews) January 11, 2020

Bloomberg’s media blitz has dominated television and radio across Texas and the nation in the last several months.

Mark Jones, a political expert at Houston’s Rice University, said Bloomberg had spent at least $15 million on ads in Texas through mid-January.

I am Obsessed with the spectacle of these Bloomberg Texas rallies

pic.twitter.com/k9gTWNcgoB

— wearing cowboy hat at Michael Bloomberg rally (@neoliberal_dad) January 12, 2020

Since Bloomberg officially declared his candidacy on Nov. 24, he has already spent more than $37 million on television ads. 

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a top Democratic presidential candidate, criticized Bloomberg for his media spending and said he’s trying to buy the election.

Among the Democratic candidates, Bloomberg ranks fifth in national public opinion polls, despite his massive ad spending that has dwarfed all other campaigns on both political aisles. 

Heading towards the National Football League championship, Bloomberg is expected to drop millions of dollars on a 60-second television ad to reach hundreds of millions of people.

“You can’t get to 330 million people by shaking hands. Television is still the magic medium,” Bloomberg said.

“If the Super Bowl wasn’t a place to get to an awful lot of people, they wouldn’t be charging a lot, or nobody would be paying it. This is capitalism at work,” he added.

Bloomberg is worth an estimated $58 billion, ranks 6th richest US person and 14th richest in the world. There’s no telling how much Bloomberg will spend ahead of the 2020 US presidential election.