Michael Bloomberg Slams "Recklessly Emotional and Senselessly Chaotic" Trump

In an op-ed, the billionaire former mayor of New York, excoriated the president's style of leadership and the "destructive" effect it has had on U.S. politics.

In an excoriating op-ed published Sunday, Michael Bloomberg says he believes that a "recklessly emotional" Donald Trump had instituted a "senselessly chaotic approach to the job" of being president.

Writing for Bloomberg, the media company he founded, the billionaire former mayor of New York slammed Trump for his leadership style and wrecking ball approach to politics, particularly after the succession of mistakes and missteps the Trump administration made last week.

Last week saw the shock resignation of defense secretary James Mattis over the Syria policy, the White House sinking deeper in multiple scandals and a government shutdown over border wall funding. Bloomberg writes that the "past week all too perfectly exemplified" the "destructive effect on competent government" Trump was having on U.S. politics.

Bloomberg, who has flirted with the idea of running for president in 2020, also highlighted that last week the stock market had its worst week since 2011. "[Investors] concerned about Trump’s taste for trade wars delivered a vote of no-confidence," Bloomberg writes.

Noting all of America's recent domestic and foreign policy woes, Bloomberg notes that each "of these mistakes has a common denominator: Trump’s recklessly emotional and senselessly chaotic approach to the job."

Bloomberg writes that the shutdown was a glimpse of what was to come over the next two years of the Trump administration, unworkable and harmful policy decisions to satisfy the whims of the president's base. "This weekend, he imposed needless costs on government workers and on the country at large — not to accomplish anything, or to defend any principle, but to pander to the extreme wing of his party and rage at being thwarted. Republicans in Congress have gone along with this for too long," Bloomberg writes.

The op-ed concludes with Bloomberg's hope that Republicans, in particular, begin to push back against the White House. "Unless something changes — unless, in particular, Republicans in Congress start showing some spine — two more years might be enough to test whether we can sustain Trump’s model of bad government. This past week, we got a glimpse of what the beginning of the collapse may look like — and what it may ultimately cost us."