• Mike Bloomberg’s first performance on the Democratic debate stage has been widely criticized by Democrats, Republicans, and pundits.
  • The billionaire’s rivals targeted his company’s use of nondisclosure agreements with female staff alleging harassment and his support of stop-and-frisk policies when he was mayor of New York City.
  • Commentators on both sides of the political spectrum also noted that Bloomberg seemed ill-prepared to defend himself Wednesday night in Las Vegas.
  • Fox News hosts, Democratic rivals, political pundits, journalists, and President Donald Trump all slammed his performance, but the campaign said the attention showed Bloomberg was a “winner.”
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The performance of former Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York City at his first Democratic presidential debate has been widely criticized by Democrats, Republicans, and pundits from all sides.

Bloomberg – who had not qualified for a presidential debate before the one Wednesday night in Las Vegas – was attacked by multiple rivals within the event’s first few minutes, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts emerging as his most vehement critic.

Off the debate stage, Bloomberg’s performance was also torn apart by both the left and the right. Prominent Democrats, like the former 2020 candidate Andrew Yang and Barack Obama’s former adviser David Axelrod, criticized the billionaire’s performance, as did President Donald Trump and his aides as well as Fox News commentators.

Here’s what they had to say:

Democrat debate

Foto: The Democratic candidates onstage before Wednesday night's debate.sourceREUTERS/Mike Blake

Trump and other conservative figures leapt to attack

Trump on Thursday morning mocked Bloomberg on Twitter as "stumbling, bumbling and grossly incompetent," calling his performance "perhaps the worst in the history of debates," and launched more personal attacks on his height.

Some of Trump's closest allies had similar criticisms.

The White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, speculated that Bloomberg's performance in the debate had deflated interest in him as a candidate.

Boris Epshteyn, an adviser to Trump's 2020 campaign who was previously a special assistant to Trump, also said Bloomberg's decision to enter the debate was a mistake.

Democrats also had scathing criticisms about his performance

Many of Bloomberg's Democratic critics also slammed his performance.

Warren made a campaign ad out of the footage of her taking on Bloomberg during the debate, in which she targeted the use of nondisclosure agreements after female employees alleged discrimination or harassment at his company, Bloomberg LP.

Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign also produced an ad using clips of his debating Bloomberg over Bloomberg's endorsement of stop-and-frisk as mayor of New York City. That policy had disproportionately targeted black and Latino men.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont also tweeted a clip of Bloomberg struggling to respond to Sanders' challenge over stop-and-frisk.

Yang, who recently became a CNN commentator after dropping out of the Democratic presidential race, said that Bloomberg did not seem prepared enough to answer questions about his record.

https://twitter.com/CuomoPrimeTime/status/1230376693162008576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

And Axelrod, a Democratic campaign strategist who served as a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, listed Bloomberg's performance as the worst of the night. "Kind of a disaster so far," he tweeted during the debate.

Media analysis also wasn't favorable to Bloomberg

During the debate, the Vox reporter Aaron Rupar said Bloomberg never recovered after being criticized by Warren in the first few minutes.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial features editor, James Taranto, joked that Bloomberg would win if he could get everyone to stop talking about the debate by signing an NDA - like the ones he was criticized for using at his company.

FiveThirtyEight's founder and editor-in-chief, Nate Silver, also noted that Bloomberg's perception in betting markets crashed during the debate.

The outlet's coverage of Bloomberg's performance was also pretty scathing, with one reporter summing it up as "Bloomberg Had A Really Bad Debate. Like … Seriously."

Silver argued, however, that "the media shouldn't proclaim Bloomberg's campaign dead (or anything close) without seeing the evidence."

Business Insider's Grace Panetta wrote that Bloomberg "crumbled under pressure" and "failed at every turn to mount a strong or even coherent defense of himself and his record."

Similarly, The New York Times said Bloomberg "looked very much like the out-of-practice politician he was before his tardy entry to the presidential campaign in November" and "did not make a good first impression."

The former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly also tweeted that Bloomberg was the "big loser" of the night and said he was "not prepared for obvious attacks."

And the Fox News host Sean Hannity shared a clip of Warren slamming Bloomberg, writing: "See ya Mike."

The conservative commentator and Daily Wire editor Ben Shapiro said people were right in saying Bloomberg had an "awful" night, but he was also critical of Sanders, the frontrunner in recent polls.

Bloomberg's campaign said criticism meant he's a 'winner,' and he's 'just warming up'

The Bloomberg campaign claimed victory after the disastrous performance, however.

Kevin Sheekey, Bloomberg's campaign manager, said in a statement after the debate: "You know you are a winner when you are drawing attention from all the candidates. Everyone came to destroy Mike tonight. It didn't happen. Everyone wanted him to lose his cool. He didn't do it. He was the grownup in the room."

https://twitter.com/aterkel/status/1230345415469490176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

The statement also said Bloomberg had successfully targeted Sanders and would improve.

"He was just warming up tonight," the statement said. "We fully expect Mike will continue to build on tonight's performance when he appears on stage in South Carolina next Tuesday."