Bloomberg defends debate performances: We don’t need a ‘college debater-in-chief’

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday sought to brush aside his poorly reviewed performances in the last two Democratic presidential primary debates, saying that he believes the U.S. needs a leader who’s ready to be commander in chief, not “college debater in chief.”

“I don’t talk until the cows come home, and as you’ve seen in the debates, I’m not someone who just yells slogans even when they’re not true,” Bloomberg said during a campaign stop in Houston. “That’s what they did. Two of them, that last debate, they had the same answers no matter what the question was.”

Bloomberg did not name the candidates to whom he was referring, though he was attacked by multiple White House rivals at the Nevada and South Carolina debates. The most pronounced criticism has come from Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who have predicated their presidential campaigns around fighting inequality and the influence billionaires such as Bloomberg hold. 

All of Bloomberg’s opponents have vehemently criticized him over policies he oversaw as mayor and comments he’s made about racial issues. Several candidates have called the stop-and-frisk policing Bloomberg oversaw in New York mayor as “racist.” 

The policy, which led to a disproportionate number of stops of minorities in New York, was ruled unconstitutional by a judge in 2013. 

Warren has also repeatedly taken aim at Bloomberg over allegations that he also oversaw a toxic workplace for female employees and has demanded that he release women from nondisclosure agreements.

“I don’t care how much money he has, the core of the Democratic Party will never trust him,” Warren said in South Carolina on Tuesday. “He’s the riskiest candidate standing on this stage.”

The former mayor and Bloomberg LP founder, who only officially entered the race in November, is not competing in the first four early-voting states, instead focusing on the 14 states voting on Super Tuesday next week, as well those set to follow. 

Amid Sanders’s emergence as the front-runner to win the Democratic nomination, Bloomberg, who is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into his campaign, has continually argued that the U.S. is not ready for a candidate as far to the left as the self-identified democratic socialist. 

“I am not a typical politician. I think I showed that a week or so ago in a debate,” he said in Houston. “If you want someone who talks turkey and who has a records of accomplishment on all the big issues facing our country, and if you want somebody who has the resources to beat [President] Trump, that’s me.