2020 run

Bloomberg takes more shots at Trump as he inches toward 2020 run

By STEPHANIE MURRAY and MARC CAPUTO

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg took another step toward running for president by taking more shots at President Donald Trump on Tuesday in early state New Hampshire where the Democrat pledged to stay active in 2020 even if he doesn’t formally jump into the race.

Bloomberg, who has made fighting global warming and the gun lobby central tenets of his political identity, made the case at Anselm College that climate change poses one of the biggest challenges to the planet, from increasing the risks from hurricanes and wildfires to killing iconic wildlife.

“Here in New Hampshire, and in Maine, one study showed that 70 percent of baby moose are being killed by ticks that are now surviving through the winter,” Bloomberg said in his prepared remarks.

A former New York mayor, media mogul and philanthropist, Bloomberg launched his speech by criticizing Trump not over climate change, at least not initially, but for the just-ended government shutdown sparked by the president's demands for border wall funding.

“To me, the government shutdown was an utter failure of executive leadership, and it's an example of just totally incompetent management that needlessly hurt millions of people,” Bloomberg said.

“I’m glad the shutdown is over for now, but the American people will continue paying a steep cost for the White’s House incompetence,” he continued, “because the president is fixated on a wall we don’t need instead of the real challenges we face: Creating good paying jobs; making health insurance more affordable; stopping the opioid crisis that is tearing so many families and communities apart; improving our public schools and making college more affordable; investing in our infrastructure; and the list goes on and on.”

Bloomberg last week began stepping up his criticisms of Trump amid the shutdown, saying the president was “way in over his head.”

On Monday, Bloomberg added another target: fellow billionaire Howard Schultz, a Democrat-turned-independent who said he plans to mount a third-party bid for president that, Bloomberg worries, would help Trump win reelection.

Bloomberg had said he planned to make a decision on whether he’d run for president in the coming weeks but gave no hints in his Tuesday speech about his timing.

Bloomberg, though, said he’ll focus on putting ideas behind the so-called “Green New Deal” for environmental preservation and climate change that Democrats say should be a major plank in the party’s platform in 2020.

“I’ve already begun working on putting together the details of what I believe a Green New Deal should look like,” he said, declining to give specifics. “And whether I run for president or not, I will work to ensure that fighting climate change — and spurring economic development in areas that have depended on fossil fuels — is a top priority for the Democratic nominee.”