Mike Pence fires shot at Michael Bloomberg over insulting comments about farmers

Vice President Mike Pence appeared to take a shot at Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg on Monday after insulting remarks Bloomberg made about farmers in 2016 resurfaced over the weekend.

While speaking at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School in 2016, Bloomberg suggested that farming requires a low-level intelligence and that anyone could be successful in agricultural endeavors.

"I could teach anybody, even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a farmer," Bloomberg said. "It's a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn."

The comments triggered bipartisan condemnation, including from supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders and a popular New York Times columnist.

Pence's response, on the other hand, was more subtle.

In lieu of a direct response, the vice president tweeted a video from Dodge that aired during the second half of the 2013 Super Bowl. Along with the ad, Pence said, "So God Made a Farmer."

The message in the ad is from a Paul Harvey speech from 1978.

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.

"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours." So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.

"Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'" So God made a farmer.

In response, Bloomberg's campaign accused critics of mischaracterizing Bloomberg's remarks. In a statement, the campaign specifically targeted Sanders.

"It's a shameful turn of events to see Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump deploy the very same attacks and tactics against Mike, but the reason is clear. At this point, the primary is Bernie's to lose, and ours to win. Bernie knows this. Trump knows this. That's why they are united in the campaign against Mike," the Bloomberg campaign said, the New York Post reported.

Sanders responded to the statement on Twitter by posting a photo of Bloomberg and President Donald Trump on a golf course together.