After Mike Bloomberg acknowledged using nondisclosure agreements to settle issues as a business executive during Wednesday’s debate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote him up a contract of her own.
“So I used to teach contract law,” the former law professor said during a CNN town hall on Thursday night, “And I thought I would make this easy. I wrote up a release and covenant not to sue. And all that mayor Bloomberg has to do is download it. I'll text it. Sign it, and then the women and men will be free to speak and tell their own stories.”
Warren, who was on the attack with just about everyone during Wednesday's debate, went after Bloomberg for the use of nondisclosure agreements and his treatment of women that had been reported in the press, repeatedly asking how many of them were there.
"None of them accuse me of doing anything, other than maybe they didn't like a joke I told," Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, countered. "They signed those agreements, and we'll live with it."
But on Friday, Bloomberg said he'd changed his mind.
"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. 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 said in a statement.
Warren said on CNN that Bloomberg's comments on women were "disqualifying", and she tweeted her proposed contract.
On Friday, Bloomberg said he'd "done a lot of reflecting on this issue over the past few days and I’ve decided that for as long as I’m running the company, we won’t offer confidentiality agreements to resolve claims of sexual harassment or misconduct going forward."
He also said and his team were consulting with experts to improve the policies of his company and campaign.
Warren's line of attack comes as her campaign seeks a much-needed comeback: after ending 2019 with $13.7 million in the bank, she spent $22.4 million in January. Her campaign told NBC News they took out a $3 million line of credit in January and spent $400,000 of it.
But her debate performance appears to be giving her a boost; she tweeted that she'd raised $5 million during and in the hours immediately after the debate and February has already been her best fundraising month yet, her campaign said, with more $17 million raised.
Later, on "The Last Word" with Lawrence O’Donnell, the Massachusetts senator described conversing with the former mayor during a debate commercial
She also offered another case for her candidacy: efficiency.
“I get real stuff done. I have rock solid values, and I get stuff done. I get hard stuff done. I fought for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, got that thing enacted and set it up over the space of a year. I can work across the aisle when I need to,” she said, naming her hearing aid bill with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, which Trump signed into law.
Warren has struggled to rise in the polls, while rival Sen. Bernie Sanders — who shares the progressive lane with her — surges.
“I don't want to be president just to yell at people," she said. "I want to be president to change things."
