New York City mayor Bill de Blasio entered the 2020 presidential race on Thursday, further growing a bloated field of Democratic candidates.
De Blasio announced his candidacy with a video expressing his campaign's commitment to putting "working people first," NBC News reports.
"There's plenty of money in this world, there's plenty of money in this country, it's just in the wrong hands," de Blasio said to open the video.
De Blasio made the same remark earlier this year in his State of the City address.
"Brothers and sisters, there's plenty of money in the world. There's plenty of money in this city. It's just in the wrong hands," de Blasio said in January.
The New York Post notes that de Blasio owns two homes and receives a salary of over a quarter of a million dollars every year.
The mayor's presidential campaign launch video touted his pursuit of an increased minimum wage, guaranteed paid sick leave, and free pre-K in New York City.
De Blasio also went after President Donald Trump.
"I'm a New Yorker. I've known Trump's a bully for a long time. This is not news to me or anyone else here and I know how to take him on," de Blasio said.
He promised to "take on the wealthy" and the "big corporations."
De Blasio's decision to run comes despite the fact many of his allies and aides urged him to refrain from launching a campaign.
One former aide called a de Blasio candidacy "fucking insane" while laughing, and one of his friends said it would be "idiotic."
In the 1980s de Blasio traveled to Nicaragua, where he grew fond of the communist Sandinista regime. The Sandinistas were denounced by President Ronald Reagan's administration. In 1994, he and his wife violated a travel ban by visiting Cuba for their honeymoon.
In 2013, he acknowledged having a "socialistic impulse."
"I think there's a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs. And I would, too," de Blasio said.