Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed the finger at his presidential opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders after his campaign offices were vandalized.
In the latest vandalism attack, a perpetrator spray-painted the front doors of his Knoxville, Tennessee, office either Thursday night or early Friday morning with expletives and posters that said “authoritarian,” “classist,” and “oligarch,” according to WVLT. The posters also featured derogatory comments Bloomberg allegedly made toward women and people of color that were labeled “fascist,” “sexist,” and “racist.”
Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey released a statement saying, “This latest incident at our Knoxville campaign office is exactly what we’ve been warning about. We don’t know who is responsible for this vandalism, but we do know it echoes language from the Sanders campaign and its supporters. Over the past week, we’ve seen similar attacks against Mike Bloomberg 2020 offices in multiple states. Fortunately, no one has been injured. But this needs to end before someone gets hurt.”
Sheekey then called for Sanders “to immediately condemn these attacks and for his campaign to end the Trump-like rhetoric that is clearly encouraging his supporters to engage in behavior that has no place in our politics.”
This is the fourth time that one of Bloomberg’s offices has been vandalized, according to his campaign. His offices in Toledo, Ohio, Youngstown, Ohio, and in Ann Arbor, Michigan, were vandalized within the last week, the campaign said.
The campaign is tying the language used in the vandalism to the Sanders campaign, saying that the words “oligarch,” “corporate pig,” “eat the rich,” are all phrases that mirror those used by the Vermont senator or his campaign staffers.
