Janelle Irwin Taylor
Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is launching another television ad Thursday that will air on cable and broadcast stations nationwide.
In his latest advertising buy, Bloomberg targets President Donald Trump in a 30-second spot about Trump’s inaction on protecting Americans from coronavirus.
With the virus officially hitting the U.S. and spreading, Americans are beginning to worry about their health and safety. The Bloomberg campaign points to Trump’s “reckless” cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s funding and his “senseless” elimination of protective measures put in place following the last pandemic Ebola virus outbreak, which they say make the U.S. underprepared for coronavirus.
In a strongly-worded email announcing the latest ad campaign, Bloomberg’s campaign wrote that Trump is ignoring science and claiming the virus will “miraculously” disappear by April.
The caution against plans to rely on “warm weather” to end the spread of the virus.
“Managing a crisis is what Mike Bloomberg does,” the ad begins. “In the aftermath of 9/11, he steadied and rebuilt America’s largest city, oversaw emergency response to natural disasters, upgraded hospital preparedness to manage health crises, and he’s funding cutting edge research to contain epidemics.”
Bloomberg’s isn’t the only critic. A CNN analysis compared Trump’s continued relaxed tone on the possible pandemic to George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” moment.
“He has consistently argued that the Dow is a metric of his success as president. But if the coronavirus spreads in the United States, markets could panic, and the Trump administration could end up looking like George Bush on the battleship with that big ‘Mission Accomplished‘ banner behind him,” CNN analyst Christine Romans wrote.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s campaign is touting his track record on public health including his work on combating bioterrorism attacks in New York City, the swine flu outbreak in 2009 and the West Nile virus in 2012.
The ads will air just two days after Bloomberg appeared in his second national debate alongside six other Democrats running for the party’s presidential nomination. His performance was widely considered better than his first, but Bloomberg still went down as one of the debate losers Tuesday night.
Bloomberg is countering that by continuing to spend heavily on television advertising, including in Florida where no other candidates have yet spent money on ads.
He also had ads running during Tuesday night’s debate.
