MIKE BREAKS DOWN
Tearful Bloomberg hails the ‘best day of his life’ despite being forced to quit after Super Tuesday humiliation
MIKE Bloomberg broke down in tears as he thanked his supporters today for the "best day of my life" as he dropped out the presidential race.
Bloomberg became the latest Dem to back Joe Biden following the humiliating performance on Super Tuesday that effectively ended his campaign.
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Bloomberg spent half a million dollars on advertising, but could only win the tiny island of American Samoa yesterday.
"Today, sorry we didn't win, but it's still the best day of my life and tomorrow is going to be even better," he told his supporters during an emotional address on Wednesday.
"These past few months have been some of the most inspiring, certainly in my life and I hope in yours," he told his supporters.
He added: "I remain clear-eyed about my overriding objective: victory in November. Not for me, but for our country.
"And so while I will not be the nominee, I will not walk away from the most important political fight of my life."
President Trump chimed in on Bloomberg's exit, blaming the billionaire's team of "loser" advisers who "pushed" him to run.
Trump told Fox News on Wednesday night that Bloomberg was "surrounded by losers who ripped him off for a lot of money."
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Bloomberg has joined forces with fellow former candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar to support Biden in a bid to stop Bernie Sanders.
The billionaire previously pledged to keep his staff on until November to support the Dem nominee.
Bloomberg hailed Biden as "honest and decent", saying he's the candidate with the "best shot" at defeating Trump.
The endorsement came after Biden "returned from the dead" to sweep nine victories in an incredible Super Tuesday comeback.
";I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it," he said.
"After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden."
Bloomberg previously said if he dropped out of the race, his campaign offices would remain open in key states until November in an effort to take down Trump.
The former NYC Mayor teared up when speaking at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.
"In just 100 days, I have been to 73 cities in 27 states all across the country," he said.
"In every place we went, I listened to Americans of every age and every race and every ethnicity and every religion and every identity and orientation.
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"And I heard about their hopes, and their dreams, and their fears and their struggles."
Bloomberg praised his supporters, saying, "no campaign has ever accomplished as much as you did in such a short period of time."
He said "this really is the best, most creative, most hardworking campaign ever assembled."
He added that "there is no doubt in my mind we would've beaten Donald Trump in November.
"And you know who else knows that, Donald Trump. He's been scared stiff of us and for good reason.
"Every time he hit us, we hit back twice as hard.
"And unlike his jabs, our punches packed the truth.";
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Trump immediately hit back after the billionaire announced he was stopping his campaign Wednesday morning, saying he knew Bloomberg didn't have what it takes to become president.
"I could have told him long ago that he didn’t have what it takes, and he would have saved himself a billion dollars, the real cost.
"Now he will pour money into Sleepy Joe’s campaign, hoping to save face. It won’t work!"
Trump added in a separate tweet: "Mini Mike Bloomberg will now FIRE Tim O’Brien, and all of the fools and truly dumb people who got him into this MESS."
"This has been the worst, and most embarrassing, experience of his life...and now on to Sleepy Joe!"
He later slammed Bloomberg and former candidate and billionaire Tom Steyer, who dropped out of the race over the weekend.
"Pandering Mini Mike Bloomberg, along with his wacky friend, Tom Steyer, have found out the hard way that you can’t buy the election!" Trump tweeted
"They both wish they had it to do over again!"
As Bloomberg announced his drop from the race, Warren was reportedly meeting with her campaign advisers to find out if she should stay in the race for president following her flop on Tuesday.
Reports surfaced that an all-staff email sent out by Roger Lau to the Massachusetts Senator's campaign said they "fell well short of viability goals and projections" Tuesday night.
"This decision is in her hands, and it’s important that she has the time and space to consider what comes next," the message said, as reported by
Bloomberg's , including allegations from past NDA's coming back to haunt him on the campaign trail.
He allegedly told a former sales worker to abort her baby when she said she was pregnant.
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According to documents obtained by the , Sekiko Sakai Garrison allegedly told Bloomberg she was pregnant in 1995 — to which he responded, "Kill it!"
Bloomberg has denied the comment, and the suit was settled out of court, but r.
He was also accused of telling another employee who was struggling to find childcare for her kids to hire "some black," the reported.
"All you need is some black who doesn't have to speak English to rescue it from a burning building," he was accused of saying.
Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren and treatment of women in the workplace onstage during a Las Vegas debate.
The other Democratic candidates demanded Bloomberg release the women who signed the non-disclosure agreements.
Bloomberg defended his use of the documents when pressed at the debate.
"None of them accuse me of doing anything other than maybe they didn't like a joke I told," he said.
"The agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet and that's up to them.
"They signed those agreements and we'll live with it."
He later announced he would release three women from the agreements if they contacted his office.
Bloomberg's campaign was also clouded by his former defense of the controversial stop-and-frisk tactic used by the NYPD when he was mayor.
In resurfaced audio from a 2015 speech at Aspen Institute, for his comments.
“You can take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, sixteen to twenty-five. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city… and that’s where the real crime is,” he said.
He added: “You want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets, put the cops where the crime is in the minority neighborhoods."
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“And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them,” Bloomberg added.
Biden dubbed Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk policy as "abhorrent" at the Las Vegas debate.
Warren said that Democrats would not beat Trump in the 2020 election "if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of supporting racist policies like red-lining and stop and frisk."
After spending a whopping $500 million on his campaign, the billionaire claimed his first — and only victory — in American Samoa, a tiny South Pacific U.S. Territory on Tuesday.
Biden claimed victory in nine states on Super Tuesday, and is .
Bloomberg added as he announced his drop from the race: "I'm immensely proud of the campaign we ran. I'm deeply grateful to all the Americans who voted for me, and to our dedicated staff and volunteers."
"I want you to stay engaged, active, and committed to our issues.
Biden thanked Bloomberg for his support Wednesday.
"@MikeBloomberg, I can’t thank you enough for your support—and for your tireless work on everything from gun safety reform to climate change," Biden said in a statement.
"This race is bigger than candidates and bigger than politics.
"It’s about defeating Donald Trump, and with your help, we’re gonna do it."
I will be right there with you. And together, we will get it done," he said.
Bernie Sanders tweeted that the U.S. needs "new politics" as Bloomberg announced he was dropping from the race.
"You cannot beat Trump with the same old, same old kind of politics," Sanders tweeted.
"What we need is a new politics that brings working class people and young people into our political movement," he wrote.
At a press conference Wednesday, however, Sanders was shocked to learn Bloomberg dropped out of the race when questioned by a reporter about what he thought of the former Mayor's run.
"Has he stepped out?" The Vermont Senator questioned.
"It's the first I've heard about that."
"He certainly brought a lot of money into this race. He certainly made a lot of television networks very, very wealthy and I'm sure they're very disappointed that he's leaving.
"I have no animosity for Mayor Bloomberg. I certainly strongly disagree with many of his policies as Mayor of the city New York."
"But this just confirms what I said."
"I suspect we will see a lot of money coming into Biden's campaign, probably a lot of negative ads attacking me, - that's what we're taking on," Sanders said.
A wave of former Warren supporters announced their new support for Sanders Wednesday, amid the Massachusetts Senator's meeting to discuss her future in the race.
Sanders said he spoke with Warren Wednesday as she was deciding the direction she would move, and called her a "very, very excellent senator" who ran a "strong campaign."
";Sen. Warren told me she is assessing her campaign," Sanders told reporters.
"She has not made any decisions as of this point."
"It is important, I think for all of us, certainly me, who has known Elizabeth many, many years, to respect the time and the space that she needs to make her decision," he added.
Bloomberg entered the race for president late in the game, as he announced his candidacy in late November.
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He quickly pumped millions of dollars into his campaign — and ended up spending more than $2 million for each delegate he had won by the end of the night Tuesday.
Donald Trump Jr. joined in railing Bloomberg's flopped candidacy for President Wednesday on Twitter.
"It was a 'short' campaign," he said, alluding to his father's nickname for the former NYC Mayor, "Mini Mike."
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