NEW
YORK (AP) — Americans are facing an "epidemic
of dishonesty" in Washington that's more
dangerous than terrorism or communism.
That's
according to former New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, who warned in a
commencement speech on Saturday at Texas' Rice
University that "an endless barrage of lies"
and a trend toward "alternate realities" in
national politics pose a dire threat to U.S.
democracy.
The
76-year-old billionaire, who flirted with an
independent presidential run in 2016, did not
call out any politicians by name.
Although
he derided Donald Trump as "a con" and a
"dangerous demagogue" before his election, in
an interview before the speech Bloomberg
refused to comment specifically on the
Republican president's troubled history with
the truth. Fact checkers have determined that
Trump has made hundreds of false and
misleading statements since entering the Oval
Office.
"This
is bigger than any one person. It's bigger
than any one party," he said in the interview.
In
the speech, Bloomberg evoked the legend of the
nation's first president, George Washington,
who as a boy said he could not tell a lie when
asked if he cut down a cherry tree.
"How
did we go from a president who could not tell
a lie to politicians who cannot tell the
truth?" Bloomberg asked Rice graduates and
their families gathered in Houston.
He
blamed "extreme partisanship" for an
unprecedented tolerance of dishonesty in U.S.
politics. People are committed more to their
political tribes than the truth, he said,
suggesting that the nation is more divided
than any time since the Civil War.
"There
is now more tolerance for dishonesty in
politics than I have seen in my lifetime,"
Bloomberg said. "The only thing more dangerous
than dishonest politicians who have no respect
for the law is a chorus of enablers who defend
their every lie."
For
example, he noted that Democrats spent much of
the 1990s defending President Bill Clinton
against charges of lying and personal
immorality just as Republicans attacked the
lack of ethics and honesty in the White House.
Just the reverse is happening today, he said.
In
one jab at Trump, he noted that the vast
majority of scientists agree that climate
change is real. Trump and his Republican
allies have repeatedly called climate change a
hoax promoted by America's adversaries.
"If
99 percent of scientists whose research has
been peer-reviewed reach the same general
conclusion about a theory, then we ought to
accept it as the best available information —
even if it's not a 100 percent certainty,"
Bloomberg said. He added: "That, graduates, is
not a Chinese hoax."
He
warned that such deep levels of dishonesty
could enable what he called "criminality."
Asked what specifically he was talking about,
Bloomberg noted "lots of investigations" going
on, but he declined to be more specific.
Several
Trump associates are facing criminal charges
as part of a federal probe into Russia's
meddling in the 2016 election. Three have
already pleaded guilty to making false
statements to the FBI. Federal investigators
want to interview Trump himself, although the
president's legal team has resisted so far.
"When
elected officials speak as though they are
above the truth, they will act as though they
are above the law," Bloomberg told Rice
graduates. "And when we tolerate dishonesty,
we get criminality. Sometimes, it's in the
form of corruption. Sometimes, it's abuse of
power. And sometimes, it's both."
"The
greatest threat to American democracy isn't
communism, jihadism, or any other external
force or foreign power," he continued. "It's
our own willingness to tolerate dishonesty in
service of party, and in pursuit of power."