Michael Bloomberg attacks Trump over government shutdown and warns ‘beginning of the collapse’ has begun

Michael Bloomberg has warned Americans about Donald Trump’s “recklessly emotional and senselessly chaotic approach” to the presidency as the former New York mayor considers a bid for the White House in 2020.

Mr Bloomberg, who recently switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party and funnelled millions into the 2018 midterm elections to battle the GOP’s grip on Washington, penned a searing Bloomberg op-ed in which he predicted “the beginning of the collapse” may have arrived in December, as markets plunged amid a US government shutdown.

“There are many reasons to be optimistic about 2019. The increasingly isolated man in the Oval Office is not one of them,” the billionaire entrepreneur and politician wrote Sunday.

“With the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency drawing to a close, the past week all too perfectly exemplified its destructive effect on competent government in Washington — and it should give all Americans, in all parties, cause for concern,” he continued. “At the halfway mark of this terrible presidency, one has to wonder how much more the country can take.”

Despite the US Senate unanimously voting to support a federal spending bill that would have kept the government open under current budgetary allocations, the president demanded $5.7bn to build a wall stretching the entirety of the US-Mexico border.

After learning he would not receive the votes to fund his border wall, Mr Trump walked back his demands but then ultimately decided to reject the bill that cleared the Senate, triggering a shutdown over the holidays.

The move arrived amid several additional controversial decisions out of the White House, including Mr Trump’s sudden announcement of a complete withdrawal from Syria and the resignation of US Defence Secretary James Mattis, who left the administration in protest.

The president has since forced his early exit from the cabinet to occur next week rather than his scheduled last day in February.

“One of the few people protecting Trump from Trump is leaving. And unfortunately, few Republicans in Congress have shown any appetite for that job, preferring instead to appease his worst instincts — as the debate over a wall along the US-Mexican border continues to show,” Mr Bloomberg wrote.

“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.”

He concluded, “This past week, we got a glimpse of what the beginning of the collapse may look like — and what it may ultimately cost us.”