Michael Bloomberg joked about using Predator drones to dispatch his political opponents at a Goldman Sachs event in 2016, stating that they’d be used on a “list of everybody that’s annoyed me or screwed me for the last 74 years.”
Listen to the tasteless and vengeful remarks from the authoritarian billionaire here:
Bloomberg was speaking at a Goldman Sachs event held at New York’s Yankee Stadium. Audio of his remarks was leaked to the public by a former Goldman Sachs employee disenchanted with the controversial financial institution.
A Bloomberg spokesperson admitted that the drone remarks were “inappropriate” in a statement on the audio to CNN.
During his remarks at the Goldman Sachs-sponsored event, Bloomberg declared his loyalty to major banking and Wall Streets financial institutions. He said that his hypothetical presidential campaign would seek to “defend the banks,” and that Goldman Sachs’ Wall Street elites were “my peeps.”
Bloomberg had been considering an independent bid for the presidency in 2016, and appears to have been promoting the idea to powerful Wall Street donors in his Yankee Stadium remarks. That campaign didn’t happen, with the former New York City mayor falling in line with Hillary Clinton. Now, as socialist Senator Bernie Sanders appears favorably positioned to win the Democratic nomination for President, Bloomberg has unshelved the plan, with a goal of maintaining the establishment order of the Democratic Party.
The remarks are the latest in a string of questionable old quotes the ultrabillionaire former Mayor has been lambasted for. Bloomberg has called a father and son who died of heroin overdoses a “bad family” during a conversation about the opioid epidemic, and referred to farmers and machinists as simpletons.