How's Bloomberg's golf game? Trump tweets about 'Mini' Mike

FPI / February 12, 2020

While he is spending big in his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, “big” is definitely not a word to describe Mike Bloomberg’s golf game, President Donald Trump says.

“Mini Mike is a short ball (very) hitter,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. The president added: “Tiny club head speed,” before ending with “KEEP AMERICA GREAT!”

In 2009, The New York Times ran a piece on then-New York City Mayor Bloomberg under the headline “For Bloomberg, Golf’s a Foe With No Term Limits”.

The Times’ story noted that “like many driven men in their seventh decade,” Bloomberg “has settled on a pastime that now borders on obsession: golf. And he pursues the game with the same results-oriented approach he brought to business and politics: fixating on prevailing and unbothered by the cost.”

The article continued: “The billionaire mayor has hired two professional golfers to improve his swing. He has joined exclusive clubs in Bermuda, Maryland, Florida and New York. He purchased a digital simulator to measure the speed of his swing and the distance of his shot.”

By Trump’s assessment, all of that equipment and fancy club memberships apparently didn’t do much for Bloomberg’s length off the tee.

“Unbothered by the cost” is just as applicable for Bloomberg’s run for the White House. He has reportedly spent more than $300 million of his personal fortune on TV ads thus far.

Bloomberg announced that he intended to double his TV ad buys after the Iowa caucuses.

The billionaire’s massive spending is paying off as Bloomberg jumped to third place in a recent Quinnipiac poll with 8 percent. It was the first time Bloomberg figured prominently in a national poll.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s campaign ran into its first crisis this week when audio was released of a 2015 speech during which he defended New York City’s “stop and frisk” policing procedure.

In the speech Bloomberg gave to the Aspen Institute, the billionaire acknowledged that "stop and frisk" targeted minority "kids" whom cops must throw "up against the wall" to disarm. The Aspen Times reported at the time that Bloomberg representatives asked the Institute not to distribute footage of his appearance.

"Ninety-five percent of murders- murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take a description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops," he said. "They are male, minorities, 16-25. That's true in New York, that's true in virtually every city (inaudible). And that's where the real crime is. You've got to get the guns out of the hands of people that are getting killed."

Bloomberg also said urban crime-fighting required cities to "spend the money" and "put a lot of cops in the streets," particularly in "minority neighborhoods," where he said the crime is. He also acknowledged the "unintended consequences" of the policy.

"So one of the unintended consequences is people say, 'Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.' Yes, that's true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods," Bloomberg is heard saying on the recording. "Yes, that's true. Why do we do it? Because that's where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids' hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them... And then they start... 'Oh I don't want to get caught.' So they don't bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home."

Free Press International