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Bloomberg Talks Climate Change and Gun Control While Weighing 2020 Run for President

Clay Masters/IPR
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks to a local chapter of Moms Demand Action at the Iowa Taproom in Des Moines 12/4/2018.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg packed a lot into his one-day trip to Iowa as he considers a run for president in 2020.

Bloomberg, who registered as a Democrat in 2018, visited an solar power company and a community college before speaking to a local chapter of the gun-control group Moms Demand Action in Des Moines. Tuesday night he attended a preview of the documentary “From Paris to Pittsburgh,” a climate change documentary he financed, which was partially shot in Iowa.

Bloomberg is a past skeptic of ethanol subsidies but embraced corn-based fuel as “part of the mix” for the foreseeable future. Bloomberg ran as a Republican, then as an independent when he won three terms as New York City’s mayor. But he’ll run as a Democrat if he decides to seek the presidency in 2020.

Bloomberg told the Moms Demand Action group gathered at the Iowa Taproom in Des Moines Tuesday night it’s their job to convince elected officials to vote with them and not the NRA.

“We’re on the right side of God but I’m not sure they care about that,” Bloomberg said from the stage. “They care about whether or not they get re-elected and you’ve got to convince them that if they don’t vote to stop this craziness with guns that you’re not going to have them around.”

Bloomberg was joined onstage at the event by Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie.

Clay Masters is the senior politics reporter for MPR News.