- Mike Bloomberg's 2020 campaign has put up billboards trolling President Donald Trump for eating "burnt" steak, cheating at golf, and losing the popular vote in several Western states this week.
- The former Wall Street executive and friend of Trump's is attempting to position himself as the strongest general election candidate and flooding the race with ads.
- Bloomberg isn't even on the ballot in the Nevada caucus, but Trump may see the billboards when he visits Las Vegas and Phoenix for campaign events on Friday.
- Bloomberg has spent $415 million so far on TV, radio, and digital ads - almost 10 times more than Sen. Bernie Sanders has spent on ads.
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Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York city mayor, has put up billboards trolling President Donald Trump for eating "burnt" steak, cheating at golf, and losing the popular vote in several Western states this week.
Rather than focusing on his opponents in the Democratic primary, the former Wall Street executive and friend of Trump's is attempting to position himself as the strongest general election candidate.
Bloomberg isn't even on the ballot in the Nevada caucus, but when Trump visits Las Vegas and Phoenix for campaign events on Friday, he'll be met with prominent billboards mocking him on the Vegas Strip and major highways in Arizona.
The billboards also reflect the increasingly personal attacks he's traded with the president, who's nicknamed Bloomberg "Mini Mike," a reference to the candidate's physical stature.
"Mini Mike Bloomberg's debate performance tonight was perhaps the worst in the history of debates, and there have been some really bad ones," Trump tweeted Wednesday. "He was stumbling, bumbling and grossly incompetent. If this doesn't knock him out of the race, nothing will. Not so easy to do what I did!"
Bloomberg has already spent more than $460 million on his campaign since he joined the race in November. By comparison, $415 million of that has been spent on TV, radio, and digital ads - almost 10 times more than Sen. Bernie Sanders has spent on ads.
The billboards were designed to get under Trump's skin, but appeared to irk many others.
It didn't take long for critics online to start tearing into the ads, calling them elitist for mocking well-done steak and discussing the golfing habits of two billionaires.
Not exactly "I like Ike" but it's memorable. pic.twitter.com/eaqW0khlFP
- Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) February 21, 2020Fun fact: my working-class family eats their steak well-done and pointing out that Trump has character quirks and peccadilloes that are considered "low-class" only ingratiates him to them.
Glad everyone thought Bloomberg was electable and is reveling in his rampant classism. pic.twitter.com/EINe5KtQUh
- Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) February 21, 2020More Americans eat their steak well done than medium rare according to a @YouGov poll.
Also you can barely see Mike Bloomberg's name... https://t.co/HW44NFCWns
- Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) February 21, 2020This man would lose to Trump by double digits pic.twitter.com/oF7C0YcU7e
- Bloomberg Debate Coach (@lib_crusher) February 21, 2020Bloomberg's consultants are grifting him so hard lmao pic.twitter.com/mTqK1Iyy5u
- Ken KlippenSTEIN (@kenklippenstein) February 21, 2020