President Donald Trump took a jab at one of his former political rivals during Thursday’s press conference — calling on a reporter from Bloomberg and joking, “How’s Michael?”
The president’s icy relationship with the press has not warmed up during the coronavirus pandemic, though he now appears before them every day as his coronavirus task force briefs the nation on the virus.
After asking who the reporter was with, in which he said Bloomberg, Trump asked, “How’s Michael doing? Good?” The reporter then laughed and continued to proceed with his question.
Here is the clip of the interaction:
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1243312680141836289?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1243312680141836289&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fijr.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D1230129%26action%3Dedit
Michael Bloomberg and Trump had an ongoing feud when the former New York City mayor was on the campaign trail. The president constantly mocked Bloomberg’s height, at one point crouching behind a podium at CPAC to dig the joke a bit further.
After the field of Democrats trounced Bloomberg in one of the debates, Trump also took a shot at the billionaire, joking that he was “stumbling, bumbling and grossly incompetent.” And adding, “If this doesn’t knock him out of the race, nothing will.”
Of course, in early March, Bloomberg dropped out of the race after a poor performance on Super Tuesday. He endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, saying, “I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it.”
Now, Bloomberg is facing heat from his former campaign staffers, some of whom are suing him for allegedly promising to employ them through the November general election but then backing out of that deal when Bloomberg dropped out of the race.
Trump has been dealing with the coronavirus that has taken hold of New York City, where he was a real estate mogul and television star at the same time that Bloomberg was the mayor of the big apple.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has also been critical of the way that the federal government has handled the coronavirus, blasting Congress in a recent press conference.