All the old blots on Bloomberg are new again

Catching up with Mike

If you're over 30 and have lived in the New York City media market long enough, there's a good chance you've heard these things about Michael Bloomberg before: his history of sexist and sexually raunchy remarks at his company. His vehement defense of stop-and-frisk policing against accusations of racial profiling. His Republican Lite economic views. None of this record stopped him from winning election three times for New York mayor as he spent gazillions to drown out his opponents.

But this old material is fresh news for the rest of America and has become ripe for revisiting as Bloomberg's unprecedented ad spending (now up to $417.7 million) propels him into contention for president. It's a high-decibel drumbeat of negative publicity that money can't buy for his rivals.

The Washington Post resurrected Bloomberg's history circa 1990 of comments that were profanely sexist and brought his company harassment suits, including the allegation he told a saleswoman to “kill it” when he learned she was pregnant. He has denied that allegation and the woman received a confidential settlement, but a former Bloomberg employee told the Post he witnessed the conversation.

A Bloomberg spokesman has owned up more generally to this: "Mike openly admits that his words have not always aligned with his values and the way he has led his life, and some of what he has said is disrespectful and wrong.”

But there's more — much more — to grate on 2020 Democratic sensibilities, and not just of the #MeToo variety. Such as in 2010, when Bloomberg called Obamacare "a disgrace" that would do "absolutely nothing to fix the big health care problems" and was just "another program that's going to cost a lot more money." Or remarks in 2012, 2015 and as recently as 2018 against proposals to raise the minimum wage. (Now he favors a $15 minimum by 2025.)

Bloomberg is running ads touting his relationship with former President Barack Obama, and it's true they were in sync on issues such as gun control and climate change. But former Vice President Joe Biden pointed out on NBC's "Meet the Press": "He wouldn't even endorse Barack in 2008. He wouldn't endorse him. You know, he endorsed [George W.] Bush [in 2004]."

Bloomberg's campaign is betting that desperation to beat President Donald Trump will make Democrats more willing to look past his past. But Trump's team won't. Republicans already are spotlighting the alleged "kill it" remark with women and abortion foes in mind. After "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace noted Trump's own history of "sexist comments," White House counselor Kellyanne Conway contended Bloomberg's workplace remarks about women were "far worse" than Trump's infamous "Access Hollywood" tape.

DOJ alumni would show Barr door

The fallout continues from Attorney General William Barr's intervention in the sentencing recommendation of Trump pal Roger Stone, with more than 1,110 former Justice Department officials calling on Barr to resign.

The signatories, who served in Republican as well as Democratic administrations, posted a statement Sunday: "Mr. Barr's actions in doing the President's personal bidding unfortunately speak louder than his words." They said "it falls to the department's career officials to take appropriate action to uphold their oaths of office and defend nonpartisan, apolitical justice."

Newsday's Laura Figueroa Hernandez reports that a pair of top administration officials on the Sunday talk shows defended Trump’s tweeting at the department, which Barr complained “make it impossible for me to do my job.”

“He didn’t have a conversation with Bill Barr about the Roger Stone case, he had a conversation with the whole world," said Conway. Marc Short, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, said Trump's tweeting is "one of the things that the American people love about him."

Janison: Arrested development

Imagine a toddler in the stands at a ballgame calling the opposing team "a bunch of poopie faces."

That's pretty much what you're seeing from the highest public office in the land, writes Newsday's Dan Janison.

In 2020, the nation's foremost preschooler uses "Mini Mike, Pocahontas, Crazy Bernie" as taunts. "Fredo" is Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's brother; got that from another kid, on YouTube.

Trump all but chants "Nyahh, nyahh, nyahh," and so his friends and supporters clap their hands and jeer along with him. Isn't he adorable?

Who's the wall paying for?

Tapes released last month revealed Trump lending his ear to two of Rudy Giuliani's now-indicted associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, at a small dinner for big donors in 2018. Now another of the donors who was there lobbying Trump, Canadian billionaire Barry Zekelman, is getting back.

The Arizona Daily Star of Tucson reports that steel poles making up a recently built section of the border wall in southern Arizona bear the name "Atlas Tube." That's the Chicago-based division of Zekelman Industries.

Zekelman’s lobbying effort, detailed last May by The New York Times, included a $1.75 million donation by Wheatland Tube, also a division of Zekelman Industries, to a pro-Trump super PAC in 2018.

Trump's China syndrome

Trump, who came to the White House with a reputation of germaphobe in chief, has slathered praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping for his handling of the growing COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. Trump also has pushed back at health experts calling for a tougher posture and more transparency from Beijing, The Washington Post reports.

U.S. officials still do not have the information they have repeatedly sought from China. Trump has told advisers that a harder line could backfire because Xi controls the Chinese government “totally” and will not work with the United States if Washington says anything negative about the country, an administration official told the Post. Trump also worries about the effect that criticism would have on financial markets and trade talks.

Trump is counting on warmer weather to slow the epidemic. He said, after speaking to Xi, "he feels that … by April or during the month of April, the heat, generally speaking, kills this kind of virus.”

That could happen, according to U.S. health officials, but they're not so sure. In Singapore, for instance, it is humid and above 80 degrees, but there are still more than 50 cases of the virus. "When you’re dealing with a pandemic-type virus that is brand-new, there’s no way of knowing what’s going to happen when the weather gets warm,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Trail mix

The moderates still crowding the Democratic field lined up on the Sunday shows to take aim at progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, the putative front-runner, and Bloomberg, who's chipping away at their support, reports Newsday's Scott Eidler.

Sanders has "never gotten anything done," Biden asserted on NBC's "Meet the Press." "He's been talking about health care, 'Medicare for All,' universal health care, for 35 years. Nothing's happened. I helped get passed Obamacare. I helped move it forward. I got the votes."

Biden and Pete Buttigieg denounced Sanders' supporters for attacking Culinary Workers Union employees, who faced online threats after criticizing Sanders' Medicare for All plan. "If any of my supporters did that, I’d disown them," Biden said.

Amy Klobuchar, on ABC's "This Week," said prior polling that suggests she has weak black and Latino support doesn't mean she won't improve her standing. Her problem, she said, is that "my name identification in states outside of the early few states was not that high, simply because I didn’t have the money of Mike Bloomberg to run more ads."

Sanders, addressing a Sunday rally in Nevada, was interrupted by a group of topless women who jumped onstage and seemed to have a beef with subsidies for the dairy industry.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who introduced Sanders minutes earlier, appeared to be confused by the incident and was seen on video averting his gaze from the stage, the Daily News reported. When he spoke, de Blasio took a shot at Bloomberg. “We got rid of stop-and-frisk, and now six years in a row, crime has gone down,” he said.

What else is happening:

• Stop-and-frisk started in New York City under Giuliani, but that ex-mayor now echoes Trump's new view that Bloomberg went too far. "I was always a little annoyed at him for taking the program and not really monitoring it and letting it run out of control," Giuliani said on John Catsimatidis' radio show on WNYM/970 AM. Funny how Giuliani never mentioned that before.
• Donald Trump Jr. will headline a fundraiser for Jason Lewis, a candidate in Minnesota's GOP Senate primary who, as a radio commentator in 2013, said Republicans have "dual loyalties" to Israel and "the Jewish lobby" controls the party. Lewis also lamented not being able to call women "sluts." He is backed by former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, who is Jewish and said the past remarks reflected Lewis' "career as a radio entertainer."
• Ivanka Trump, speaking in Dubai on Sunday, lauded a handful of Mideast countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for embarking on “significant reforms” to advance women’s rights. Despite reforms there, women’s rights activists and other campaigners in Saudi Arabia are imprisoned and facing trial on vague charges related to national security, The Associated Press reports.
• The relentlessly quotable Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said this on CBS' "Face the Nation" on why Trump should listen to Barr and stop tweeting about criminal cases: "Does the president have a right to tweet about a case? Of course. Just because you can sing, though, doesn’t mean you should sing. You can have a voice like Mick Jagger, but you wouldn’t want to start belting out ‘Honky Tonk Women’ in church. This is a case where tweeting less would not cause brain damage.”
• Nearly 12,000 Democratic caucusgoers participated in the first day of early voting in Nevada Saturday, the state party announced. CNN called it a considerable turnout that Democrats celebrated even as some voters voiced concerns over long wait times. The big day is Feb. 22.
• Trump doesn't face much of a primary fight, but Republican voters are nevertheless turning out in droves for him, a warning sign for Democrats in November, Politico reports.