US News (7)

Bloomberg: I'm considering 2016 bid

"I find the level of discourse and discussion distressingly banal and an outrage and an insult to the voters," Bloomberg told the Financial Times, adding that the public deserved "a lot better." ..... he was troubled by Donald Trump's success on the Republican side, and Hillary Clinton's inability to stanch Bernie Sanders' growth on the Democratic side. ..... Bloomberg would run as a moderate promising to bring compromise and business savvy to an election characterized by highly charged disputes and political partisanship....... Bloomberg is seen as a pragmatist and fiscal conservative who has taken liberal positions on issues like gun control and the environment...... With a $39 billion fortune, Bloomberg is expected to self-fund his campaign and would likely spend north of $1 billion to do it.

Donald Trump: 'I'd beat Bloomberg'

Donald Trump says he's unfazed by the prospect of running against Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who is considering a possible third party bid in 2016....... "I'd beat him," the Republican presidential frontrunner told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview on Monday....... The braggadocious real estate magnate also appeared to goad Bloomberg. At one point, Trump cast doubt on Bloomberg's business success, suggesting that the head of the Bloomberg media empire wasn't actually worth the $36.5 billion estimated by Forbes. ...... "I don't believe it, I don't believe it," Trump said....... Trump said that the success of Bloomberg's company could easily be undermined if someone came up with a better machine than the Bloomberg Terminal, the costly financial data hardware that accounts for the bulk of Bloomberg's revenues. ...... Bloomberg, who has long been said to harbor presidential ambitions, has taken a more serious look at the 2016 race after concluding that

Trump's victory on the right and a Bernie Sanders victory on the left could leave moderate voters without an alternative.

Michael Bloomberg has no patience for your argument that he can’t win the presidency

It is funny to think of a presidential race featuring a guy from Manhattan, a guy from Queens and a guy from Brooklyn. Granted the Manhattan guy is Bloomberg who is actually from Boston, and granted the guy from Brooklyn lives in Vermont, and granted the guy from Queens now also lives in Manhattan -- but there's something perfect about the idea. Bernie Sanders's gruff Brooklyn socialism battles Donald Trump's appropriated Queens blue-collar roughness, facing off against the polished persona of Michael Bloomberg, the guy who wouldn't move into the New York City mayor's mansion -- a freestanding house in the middle of a beautiful park -- because he would rather stay in his expansive Upper East Side townhouse. ........... More than half of the people surveyed told Quinnipiac that they hadn't heard enough about Bloomberg to have an opinion of him, a pretty staggering number for a guy who 1) owns a magazine and 2) was mayor of the largest city in the country for 12 years. But still: People don't know him. So asking how this unknown person would fare against Bernie Sanders (who is still unknown to a fifth of Americans) and Donald Trump is a bit iffy. ....... Bloomberg's motivating principle is that he knows better than you. He knew better than the people he asked to watch over the Bloomberg media empire while he was mayor, cleaning house and upending the organization's newly created politics site. He knew better than the people who opposed his various efforts to fight obesity in New York City, including the infamous ban on large sodas (which is not in effect, FYI). He knew better than the term limits placed on mayors in the city of New York, convincing the city council to allow him to run for a third term despite those limits, a third term that he won by a surprisingly narrow margin. (Why'd the city council go for it? They got another term, too.) And Michael Bloomberg knows better than to think has no shot at winning the White House.

Mike Bloomberg: American public deserves "a lot better" in 2016 race
Donald Trump rolls out the expletives at Portsmouth rally

Another less literal screw-you of sorts: Trump took the stage to strains of Adele's," Rolling in the Deep." Earlier this week, the award-winning British pop star banned Trump from playing her music at his campaign events.