Bloomberg Caves to Elizabeth Warren and Says He’ll Release Women From 3 NDAs
Credit to Author: Greg Walters| Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2020 00:12:27 +0000
WASHINGTON — Mike Bloomberg promised to release women who’ve filed complaints about his behavior from three non-disclosure agreements, bowing to pressure after Democratic presidential primary rival Elizabeth Warren slapped him down ridiculously hard on the issue on the debate stage in Nevada.
Bloomberg said he’s done “a lot of reflecting on this issue over the past few days,” and decided non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, won’t fly at all at his namesake company Bloomberg LP anymore.
The announcement raises the possibility that bombshell new disclosures about Bloomberg’s behavior during his corporate days could start falling on his campaign soon, depending on whether those women take him up on the offer and what kinds of stories they have to tell.
READ: Bloomberg's night in one word: yikes.
“I’ve had the company go back over its record and they’ve identified 3 NDAs that we signed over the past 30-plus years with women to address complaints about comments they said I had made,” Bloomberg said in a statement Friday afternoon. “If any of them want to be released from their NDA so that they can talk about those allegations, they should contact the company and they’ll be given a release.”
Bloomberg’s “reflecting” follows a total shellacking from Warren during a debate in Nevada earlier this week over his reluctance to release those women from their NDAs.
READ: Bloomberg's answers on sexual harassment were pretty stunning.
Warren hammered Bloomberg as “a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians,” before cornering him on the NDA issue. Bloomberg protested that the NDAs were “consensual” but refused to say how many there were or promise to release them.
“None of them accuse me of doing anything other than maybe they didn't like the joke I told,” Bloomberg said.
At least 17 women have taken legal action against Bloomberg’s company over the past 30 years, and Mike Bloomberg himself was specifically named in three of them for his role in the company’s culture, according to ABC News.
Bloomberg cast his decision as showing why women voters can count on him to do the right thing.
“I will be a leader whom women can trust,” he said. “When we share a respect for each other and treat all of our colleagues as we ourselves would wish to be treated, we all do our best work. This is something Donald Trump does not understand — not when he ran his business, and not now when he is recklessly running our country.”
Cover: Michael Bloomberg attends the 2019 American Songbook Gala at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on June 19, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
This article originally appeared on VICE US.