UPDATE: 5:30 p.m. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote Monday in an op-ed published on his news website that he won’t run for President.
Bloomberg began flirting with a potential independent bid for the presidency last month, telling the Financial Times that American voters “deserve better” than what they’ve seen so far in the election cycle.
Bloomberg railed against the Republican presidential campaigns of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Donald Trump in his column and wrote that the possibility of electing one of them to the presidency by launching his own bid for the White House was “not a risk I can take in good conscience.”
“We cannot ‘make America great again’ by turning our backs on the values that made us the world’s greatest nation in the first place,” Bloomberg wrote. “I love our country too much to play a role in electing a candidate who would weaken our unity and darken our future — and so I will not enter the race for president of the United States.”
Bloomberg wrote that he gave the possibility of launching an independent bid for the White House “serious consideration” and ballot requirements forced him to make a decision.
Bloomberg said he wasn’t ready to endorse a candidate, but “will continue urging all voters to reject divisive appeals and demanding that candidates offer intelligent, specific and realistic ideas for bridging divides, solving problems, and giving us the honest and capable government we deserve.”
Bloomberg was “determined to run” if both Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) had been “headed toward victory” in their respective primaries, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed Bloomberg advisers.
Aides also went so far as to draft campaign themes for his campaign, including slogans that included ““All Work and No Party,” and “Fix It,” according to The Times.
