Not very much, he said he wasnt going to run and i thought he wasnt running and that is the end of my book, he doesnt run but has an impact on the country and all of a sudden these droplets of a rainstorm started two weeks ago. Host did Mister Bloomberg participate in your biography . Guest he took questions, he allowed me to interview people i wanted to interview. I talked to him several times. I followed him around a lot. I had written on and off for 12 years as a member of the New York Times editorial board. I had written a lot of editorials about him. Host when he was mayor of new york. How did Michael Bloomberg get his start . Guest he came from a small workingclass family in massachusetts. His father did not give him 1 million when he was in third grade. And 5000, and sometimes 8000. He became a student leader, a strong student and a business degree. He didnt go to vietnam. He couldnt go, very similar to you know who so he went to wall street and started at the bottom and worked his way up and a big fancy partner and a big fancy investment firm. He made lots of people angry at him and he was a partner and was fired and that was the beginning of his career. Host why did people get angry with him . Guest he could be abrasive, how the company should be run. I dont know about you after that. When he was at solomon brothers, they got so mad at him they bumped him upstairs, learned a lot about how computers and wall street could work together. When he was fired he created a computer for wall street, really helped revolutionize wall street. They called it the market master but a lot of people felt that sounded like a kitchen appliance. Not being the most modest, and bloombergs machine. Host what did it do . Guest it was an interesting machine. Not only what the price of a bond was, allow you to analyze the bonds in that area. To take increasingly to understand the analytics behind any trade and cost 24,000 a year for this machine. People my machine or my wife dont tempt me. Host eleanor randolph, these machines became ubiquitous, seeing these for the first time, how did the Bloomberg Corporation transform itself into what it is . Guest that is how, the most basic fundraising incidents, we see 20,000 of them and at one point in 2016, they suddenly went dark the british had to start a bond offering but they were ready to offer. The idea of doing this without anybody having a bloomberg doesnt host how would you describe his politics . Guest he doesnt like parties. He started, the mayor of new york and then became an independent. To have nonpartisan elections for mayor. He is a centrist. To figure out how to get things done and what works. Like a lot of businessmen or business people, moves onto the next thing. Host was he effective in three terms as mayor of new york city . Guest i argue he made some big mistakes and he was a really good mayor for new york city. He brought the city out of two recessions. One after 9 11 and he created, stopped people from smoking in new york city. Nobody believed that could happen. That became contagious around the world, he started 311 and added 700 acres of parks and launched a building boom in the city that is still going on, changed 40 of he did a lot of things that made the city better. Stop and frisk was a problem. In the name of guncontrol he caused so much suffering in the black and hispanic communities of the city. Host somewhat argue the crime rates really dropped during stop and frisk as well, and are rising back up. Guest yes, the crime rates did go down. One reason we didnt see him apologize until now, he kept thinking of the next administration didnt continue stop and frisk crime would go up but it didnt. The new administration scaled it back, crime continued to stay low. Host 200 to the area code if you want to talk about Michael Bloomberg, 7488200 is the number, 7488201 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. Eleanor randolph worked at the New York TimesEditorial Staff 20 years or so. What kind of editorials would you write, what was your specialty . I wrote about City Politics and state politics. It is controlled by the state. Its hard not to write about state politics. Host if you text a question or comment you can text that to 2027488003. We will take those with stanley who is calling in from bloomfield hills, michigan. Caller hello. Anyway i was in favor of what Mister Bloomberg is doing. What he has done at Johns Hopkins university and see to it student debt was reduced and seeing to it there is a better system of healthcare and have suggestions in that direction too, some medical care by going back to notforprofit circumstances and he will be a marvelous president , he knows how to do it, knows how to handle google from new york or whatever they do. Host thank you, stanley. What did you hear from the viewer . Guest what is interesting about what he was saying as i always thought of Michael Bloomberg as the Public Health mayor and Public Health philanthropist. He got interested in Public Health in the 80s at Johns Hopkins and you have antismoking, trans fats, the title as the nanny mayor, for new yorkers just before you die, you have three extra years because the lifespan of new yorkers is better by three is than the rest of the country. That is what the guncontrol can be under that umbrella. You could even put Climate Change under that umbrella. Host going back to the nanny mayor he had a strong reputation for being a know it all. Guest he did and he knew a lot. What is interesting about the give big golf is a came out and they said they wanted to make it so you couldnt buy cola over 16 ounces and people went berserk. The city lost the lawsuit but bloomberg said it doesnt matter, we won anyway. People began to realize those huge, 16 ounce cups were just like they had 20 pieces of sugar in them. Even the cocacola or pepsicola and, companies began, and he takes credit for that. Im glad he filed in alabama. I dont see how he gets far in alabama just growing up near alabama, knowing that state but he said in for a penny, in for a dollar. He filed in all states. Hes only going to work in a few of them. Host what is he worth and what is the estimate of what he will have to spend to be competitive . Guest his latest was 53 billion. He is giving a lot of it away. He will have given away 10 billion by the end of this year. How much is he going to spend . If hes with 53 billion he could spend 3 billion and it wouldnt even hurt. He will spend 100 million on digital land against trump, 20 million for Voting Rights and to help to be registered in his own campaign, 30 million running tomorrow morning. Host chances are they know each other. What is the relationship . Guest they are not close. Host how has it been . Guest when i brought this up one time and they were at golf tournaments and things like that. They went to these events, charity events, they were not friends. When you had that speech in 2016 at the Democratic Convention he called trump a con man, he wants to run the country the way he runs his businesses, god help us. If theres any threat of friendship between the two of them that pretty well and that it. Host next call from sandy in summerfield, florida. Please go ahead. Caller the elephant in the room, what chance to the jewish man have being elected in this country for president . Im a jewish woman asking you that. Guest that is a really good question and the only thing that seems to make a difference to me is what chance did a black man whose name is hussein have of getting elected president , what chance did a crazy real estate casino owner have . I think we tend to say because of this or that, this person cant get elected. First of all, jewish faith is one of the reasons he has been such a great philanthropist over the years. If people see that and see how important that has been to him, that is a starring his crown. Host is his faith important to him over the years . Guest very privately. I happen to know, and hanukkah and everything like that. He doesnt talk about it. Host married, family . Guest he is divorced, has two. Is in two grandchildren. Host they are not necessarily wellknown. Guest two sides, one is super intellectual, the other is a socialite and writes books and is a horsewoman who won all kinds of trophies. Just like bloomberg loves parties. Host next to scott in washington dc. You are on with father eleanor randolph. Caller i want to congratulate you on the timing of the book, great timing. My question relates to your colleague at the New York Times, you must never he has his position was stop and frisk was a nonstarter for him. There is no way he or the black community should vote for someone like him. It is so controversial in new york would translate to the National Level and prevent africanamericans and blacks from voting for Mister Bloomberg, is that a major problem for him or is it more isolated . Guest that is a good question. The column spoke for a number of new yorkers in the black and hispanic community. There are many other black and hispanic new yorkers and people elsewhere who like and admire bloomberg. I would not be surprised to see him announce he is going to pick a cabinet so we have some predominantly women, blacks, hispanic, diverse cabinet, people who are very very qualified. Host you talked about his abrasive personality at salomon brothers. Did they continue when he was mayor . Guest this guy is a salesman and he loved being a salesman. He was a jewish kid, he sold christmas wreaths in bedford when he grew up and loved doing that. He have all these different sort of ways he can connect with people. I think he will be better at this than we originally thought. Host 78 years old . Guest 77. Host here is a text for you from george in tallahassee. Will bloombergs run results in republican victories in 2020 . Guest i have no idea. I thought Hillary Clinton was going to win in 2016. Predicting who is going to win next november. Host any idea where he will pull votes from with any other candidates worried about his entrance into the campaign . Guest this is me talking. I would think biden would be obvious one, Pete Buttigieg would be the other one. Host the socalled centrists. Guest that is right. Maybe Amy Klobuchar too. Host laura is in brooklyn. Hi, laura. Caller i was wondering in your research for the book, if you had come across any influences from Michael Bloombergs partner, diana taylor. When Mister Bloomberg was running for mayor of new york and when he became associated with diana taylor, women were thrilled who knew her. Mister bloomberg had a great deal, such a distinguished, fairminded and marvelous person as we all know she is. That is my question. Host before we leave you do you remember where you live in brooklyn when Michael Bloomberg was mayor and what is your impression . Guest we were very much he was handing up for me. Very small radios at the time and they had bloomberg on them and we were collecting them and wondering, we knew he was divorced, we knew he was a millionaire, and then when he started dating diana, he rose in the eyes in estimation of women all across america. Host lets hear about his current partner. Guest his current partner is diana taylor and she is as the caller said very distinguished and very smart, a banker and she considered running for senate and decided not to do it. One of the things women talk about, he does the women he dated, they are older and this is a good sign. Hes not looking for arm candy. He is going for people more his age and more his intellectual level. Host do you know of her influence on his politics, his personality . Guest she softened him. She is quite beautiful and looks like she comes straight out of the wardroom room. She has always been interested in parks and bloomberg was mayor. They added 700 acres of park, a really big deal. She may have had some influence in that way. Host our next call is from new york city, candy, youre on booktv with eleanor randolph. Caller im a big fan of booktv. I want to ask how she feel about the Real Estate Development in new york city. Ive lived in the city since 1986 and most of my friends and colleagues lived there longer than myself and we have just become horrified by the real estate boom of luxury apartment complexes all over the city, completely ignoring when i talk about the city im talking about completely ignoring normal people who live and work and carry on normal jobs. The hudson yard is ridiculous. What is happening on 56th st. Is just overboard. I wonder about Real Estate Development. Host that is candy in new york city. Guest several people have said if you have a city, we are in miami, you should see it, they have huge buildings everywhere, places there seem to be little street corners. When you only have so much property which new york has, theres only one place to go and that is up. The thing a lot of us care about is you mentioned it, whether or not you could find places for people to live and that is one of the big challenges for new york, Affordable Housing and we havent gotten there yet and the numbers of homeless the homeless rate doubled during the bloomberg years and is still going up. Host we will finish on this, the question of lower crime rates and miss randolph seeing hesitant to credit stop and frisk for that. What didnt she say that she was thinking about saying . Bloomberg was trying hard to deal with illegal guns and they had all these incredible forays into other states, buying illegal guns and things like this, stop and frisk was the next step, never quite recognized beyond the numbers of people, the fact that crime is going down, he did not recognize what a lot of people trying to tell him at the time that it was human tragedy for many people. Host he started the socalled apology tour at the brooklyn church. Will this be with him for the first 6 months if he stays in . The fact that he apologized meant he really meant it. There are a lot of people who criticized the timing but he did it. You know how hard it is for a politician or strong person to say i am sorry and i made a mistake and i did it and it is out there. It is done. Host the many lives of Michael Bloomberg, a very timely book by eleanor randolph. Thanks for being on booktv. Here are the bestselling nonfiction audiobooks according to audible. Many of the fathers have appeared on booktv and you can watch them online, booktv. Org. Nice to have everyone here this evening. Look forward to our conversation. To my far right, i will hopefully get