After months of speculation, former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg made it official: he's running for president. Bloomberg, 77, who enters the race more than two years after former Rep. John Delaney became the first Democrat to announce his bid for president, brings a huge personal fortune to the race as well as moderate political views. He said he won't take donations and is running "to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America."
The former Republican plans to skip early states like Iowa and New Hampshire and focus on Super Tuesday states, which offer about 40 percent of the total number of delegates.
Bloomberg will likely take heat from progressives for his past stances on criminal justice issues, inappropriate comments about women, and his personal wealth. New York’s 'Stop-and-Frisk' policy during his mayoral term, which ended in 2013, led to a disproportionate number of black and Latino men being stopped by city police, a policy he apologized for just last week.
On his campaign website, Bloomberg said he will outline plans to deal with a variety of issues, including "raising taxes on wealthy individuals like me," possibly a response to criticism of his $50 billion fortune. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday "multibillionaires like Mr. Bloomberg are not going to get very far in this election," and Tom Steyer, another 2020 billionaire candidate called on Bloomberg to back a wealth tax. In an opinion article, Steyer said Bloomberg should "support a wealth tax or drop out." Steyer's proposal adds a 1 percent annual tax on the wealthiest top 0.1 percent of Americans.
From the outset, Bloomberg surprised rival campaigns by reserving more than $30 million to spend on airtime for commercials. His ad campaign will be run by a former Facebook executive.
Journalists at Bloomberg, the financial data company owned largely by the now-candidate, were told in a memo that the company plans to cover its eponymous founder's foray into presidential politics, but carefully.
"We will write about virtually all aspects of this presidential contest in much the same way as we have done so far," John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief at Bloomberg News, wrote in a note to staffers.
After laying out the complexities of covering his boss, Micklethwait described how the outlet plans to cover the 2020 election. Bloomberg News will neither investigate "Mike," as Micklethwait referred to the candidate throughout the letter, nor his Democratic rivals.
He noted the editorials have "reflected" Bloomberg's views and so will suspend the editorial board. Additionally, he announced two executive editors of Bloomberg Opinion will join the campaign.
"We will describe who is winning and who is losing," Micklethwait wrote. "We will look at policies and their consequences. We will carry polls, we will interview candidates, and we will track their campaigns, including Mike's. We have already assigned a reporter to follow his campaign (just as we did when Mike was in City Hall). And in the stories we write on the presidential contest, we will make clear that our owner is now a candidate."
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
Southwest Airlines will soon require plus-size travelers to pay for an extra seat in advance if they can't fit within the armrests of one seat. This change is part of several updates the airline is making. The new rule starts on Jan. 27, the same day Southwest begins assigning seats. Currently, plus-size passengers can pay for an extra seat in advance and later get a refund, or request a free extra seat at the airport. Under the new policy, refunds are still possible but not guaranteed. Southwest said in a statement it is updating policies to prepare for assigned seating next year.
Cracker Barrel is sticking with its new logo. For now. But the chain is also apologizing to fans who were angered when the change was announced last week.
Elon Musk on Monday targeted Apple and OpenAI in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the iPhone maker and the ChatGPT maker are teaming up to thwart competition in artificial intelligence.
