Former New York City Mayor and 2020 Democratic candidate Michael Bloomberg said during a “Today Show” interview that if he were a senator, he would vote to convict President Donald Trump.
“How would you advise the senators who are going to decide the president’s fate?” asked NBC’s Craig Melvin.
“I was asked if I was a senator, how would I vote. … I would say I would vote to impeach, vote to convict, because there’s just so much evidence that he acted inappropriately,” Bloomberg said.
“I would say I would vote to impeach, vote to convict, because there’s just so much evidence that he acted inappropriately.” @MikeBloomberg on how he’d advise senators involved in President Trump’s impeachment trial pic.twitter.com/bxTn7PTour
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 20, 2020
In the same interview, however, Bloomberg also said voters should be in charge of choosing the president.
“We’d be much better off letting the voters decide who is president in this country,” Bloomberg said.
The House of Representatives transmitted the passed articles of impeachment to the Senate Wednesday. The Senate will begin impeachment trial proceedings on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
Bloomberg’s pre-trial conviction aligns him with many other 2020 Democratic candidates, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Michael Bennet of Colorado, who each have a stake and a vote in the impeachment trial.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said Bennet, Klobuchar, Sanders, and Warren should recuse themselves from the upcoming trial.
“To participate in this trial would be a failure to the oath they took to be an ‘impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.’ Their presidential ambitions prohibit their ability to view this trial through an objective lens,” Blackburn said.
While Bloomberg isn’t a senator, he too has presidential ambitions that come to bear on the lens through which he views Trump’s impeachment trial.
