What Mike Bloomberg's Political Career Reveals About Money and Power

Showing 7 Mike Bloomberg videos from Charlie Kirk's video collection.

Mike Bloomberg entered the 2020 Democratic primary as a self-funding outsider, and Charlie Kirk treated the campaign as a case study in what money alone could and couldn't buy in politics. Kirk noted that no matter how many hundreds of millions of dollars Bloomberg poured into advertising, he only managed to win the territory of Guam before dropping out, evidence, in Kirk's telling, that even a nearly limitless budget cannot substitute for real political support. Kirk was more complicated on Bloomberg's record as mayor of New York City, crediting him, despite disagreeing with him on nearly everything else, for continuing Rudy Giuliani's crime-reduction policies rather than reversing them. That record became a recurring reference point whenever the conversation turned to policing and urban crime. Bloomberg also drew criticism in discussions about American business figures accused of softening their views toward China's government. His remark that Chinese leadership was responsive to its people's needs got cited as an example of a wealthy, powerful figure rationalizing authoritarianism to keep access to Chinese markets open. Across these threads, Bloomberg stood in for a type in Kirk's telling: wealthy, technocratic, willing to spend without limit, and useful as an example precisely because his record on crime in New York and his dealings with a foreign dictatorship pulled in opposite directions.