Bloomberg Won’t Run for President, Fearing He Would Help Elect Trump or Cruz If He Did

After months of preparing for a candidacy in the 2016 campaign, Michael Bloomberg has decided he will not run for president as an independent, The New York Times reports.

The former mayor of New York City thinks a three-way race could help Donald Trump get elected, a chance Bloomberg is not willing to take. He announced his decision Monday on Bloomberg View, his opinion site, in a column titled “The Risk I Will Not Take.”

As the race stands now, with Republicans in charge of both Houses, there is a good chance that my candidacy could lead to the election of Donald Trump or Senator Ted Cruz. That is not a risk I can take in good conscience.

I have known Mr. Trump casually for many years, and we have always been on friendly terms. I even agreed to appear on “The Apprentice”—twice. But he has run the most divisive and demagogic presidential campaign I can remember, preying on people’s prejudices and fears. Abraham Lincoln, the father of the Republican Party, appealed to our “better angels.” Trump appeals to our worst impulses.

Threatening to bar foreign Muslims from entering the country is a direct assault on two of the core values that gave rise to our nation: religious tolerance and the separation of church and state. Attacking and promising to deport millions of Mexicans, feigning ignorance of white supremacists, and threatening China and Japan with a trade war are all dangerously wrong, too. These moves would divide us at home and compromise our moral leadership around the world. The end result would be to embolden our enemies, threaten the security of our allies, and put our own men and women in uniform at greater risk.

Read Bloomberg’s full column here.

—Posted by Eric Ortiz