Joy Reid Makes a Case for Bloomberg: Dems Need Nominee Who Can ‘Fight Like a Republican’ — And He WAS One

MSNBC’s Joy Reid said the eventual 2020 Democratic nominee will have to “fight like a Republican” to defeat President Donald Trump and touted former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg because “he IS a Republican, or used to be, anyway.”

During a discussion with host Nicole Wallace, Reid acknowledged Bloomberg is a “strange sort of character,” pointing to his massive funding of progressive causes like gun reform, but his highly problematic mayoral record as running as a Republican and strongly supporting the unconstitutional, racial profiling stop-and-frisk policy.

“He still sounds like a Republican to a lot of people,” Reid said of Bloomberg. “So it’s a weird coalition. I have to tell you, if this is an exhaustion election, which I think it is, that means people just want to sleep at night.”

“I know Republicans who — they don’t mind the fiscal policies of Trump. They like that, but they also want to sleep at night. If you’re a Republican and still want Republican policy but don’t want the Tweets and the madness, you might go to him,” Reid added, touting Bloomberg’s cross-party appeal. “If you’re a Democrat that just wants to beat Trump at all costs, you see Trump as just this force of evil and you just want the money that it’s going to take to defeat him and you think this guy will spend $2 billion to beat him, you might vote for him.”

“Something I pick up anectdotally,” Wallace said. “This is a compliment, not an insult, but Democrats follow the rules. You can’t follow the rules and beat Donald Trump. He cheats at everything. He asked Ukraine to help him. There’s a sense that Bloomberg not that he will break any rules but he’ll go high and he’ll go low.”

“Number one, you can’t beat showbiz without showbiz,” Reid added. “Democrats don’t understand showbiz, even though all of showbiz is on their side, but they don’t understand showbiz. If you want a Democrat to win, they have to know how to fight like a Republican. He IS a Republican, or used to be anyway.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

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