BET Founder Says No Current Democratic Candidate Can Beat Trump

Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson doesn’t believe there is a contender within the current field of Democratic 2020 hopefuls who can defeat President Donald Trump. 

In a CNBC interview that aired Friday, the media mogul said Trump “has always been in a position where it’s his to lose.”

“If you take a snapshot today, I don’t think that group is capable of beating Trump despite what the polls say,” Johnson added.

The problem, Johnson said, is Trump’s ability to “dominate the news cycle” and disrupt political norms, coupled with the Democrats’ failure to position themselves “enough in the middle” where “most of the voters are.”

Johnson, a Democrat, noted that while he has long known billionaire Michael Bloomberg and likes him “as an individual,” Bloomberg carries the baggage of the stop-and-frisk policing efforts that soared during his time as mayor of New York City.

Bloomberg apologized earlier this month for encouraging law enforcement to temporarily detain, question and search anyone deemed reasonably suspicious ― a strategy that disproportionately impacted minorities. Though the Democratic presidential candidate said that he “was wrong” and that the goal had been to save lives, critics didn’t buy the mea culpa.

Current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), who dropped his own White House bid in September, chalked up Bloomberg’s remarks to “a death bed conversion.”

“People aren’t stupid,” de Blasio told CNN. “They can figure out whether someone is honestly addressing an issue or whether they’re acting out of convenience.”