President Trump on Monday ripped Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg and his eponymous news service hours after Trump’s 2020 campaign said it would not credential reporters from Bloomberg News at future events.
“Mini Mike Bloomberg has instructed his third rate news organization not to investigate him or any Democrat, but to go after President Trump, only,” Trump tweeted.
The president was referencing the five-foot-eight-inch Bloomberg and a memo from Bloomberg News that said the organization would not investigate any Democratic presidential candidates in light of its owner getting into the primary race.
“The Failing New York Times thinks that is O.K., because their hatred & bias is so great they can’t even see straight. It’s not O.K.!” Trump added.
The Times was among the news outlets that issued a statement condemning the Trump campaign’s decision to stop granting credentials to Bloomberg News reporters.
Trump’s tweet marked an escalation of the president’s criticisms of the former New York City mayor and his long-running efforts to paint certain media outlets as biased.
The campaign earlier Monday announced a new policy in response to a Bloomberg News memo stating the company would not conduct in-depth investigations of Bloomberg or his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination in an effort to avoid issues of bias within the primary.
The company said it would continue to investigate the Trump administration “as the government of the day,” but that it would reassess how to do that if Bloomberg wins the Democratic nomination next year.
“Since they have declared their bias openly, the Trump campaign will no longer credential representatives of Bloomberg News for rallies or other campaign events,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. “We will determine whether to engage with individual reporters or answer inquiries from Bloomberg News on a case-by-case basis.”
Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait said in response that the news operation has treated Trump fairly throughout his political career and that it would continue to do so.
“The accusation of bias couldn’t be further from the truth,” Micklethwait said in a statement. “We have covered Donald Trump fairly and in an unbiased way since he became a candidate in 2015 and will continue to do so despite the restrictions imposed by the Trump campaign.”