Democratic Candidates Joined Forces To Call Out Former Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Recent Past
The Democratic candidates met in Las Vegas for the 10th Democratic Debate. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg took the stage in a heated debate ranging from income inequality to immigration. But the biggest focus was Bloomberg’s record of racial profiling and income hoarding.
Last night was the 10th Democratic debate in Las Vegas and Senator Elizabeth Warren started off with a dig against Mike Bloomberg.
“I’d like to talk about who we are running against, a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians,” Sen. Warren said at the beginning of the debate. “And, no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg. Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women, and of supporting racist policies like redlining and stop and frisk.”
Sen. Warren that she is prepared to support whoever wins the nomination but warned about the dangers of electing Bloomberg. She added: “Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another. This country has worked for the rich for a long time and left everyone else in the dirt.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden joined Sen. Warren in calling out Bloomberg.
“Let’s get something straight. The reason that stop and frisk changed is because Barack Obama sent moderators to see what was going on. When we sent there to say that this practice has to stop, the mayor thought it was a terrible idea that we send them there. A terrible idea,” Biden told the audience. “Let’s get the facts straight. Let’s get the order straight. It’s not whether he apologized or not, it’s the policy. The policy was abhorrent and it was, in fact, a violation of every right people have and we are the ones, our administration, sent people in to moderate it and at the very same time, the mayor argued against that.”
Biden added that Bloomberg didn’t come up with the idea of ending the policy on his own. Bloomberg was forced to end the policy because of outside legal and political pressure.
Bloomberg argued back that his record on criminal justice is no different in its ability to determine the right course of action.
“I’ve sat. I’ve apologized. I’ve asked for forgiveness. But the bottom line is that we stopped too many people and we’ve got to make sure that we do something about criminal justice in this country,” Bloomberg argued. “There’s no great answer to a lot of these questions and if we took off everybody who was wrong on this panel, everybody that was wrong on criminal justice at some time in their career, there’d be nobody else up here.”
Bloomberg’s history of making women sign non-disclosure agreements after filing complaints against him also came up.
Sen. Warren took aim at Bloomberg’s long history of sexual harassment and gender discrimination hidden behind non-disclosure agreements.
“I hope you heard what his defense was, ‘I’ve been nice to some women.’ That just doesn’t cut it,” Sen. Warren said after Bloomberg told the audience that he’s given some women top jobs in his organizations. “The mayor has to stand on his own record and what we need to know is exactly what’s lurking out there. He has gotten some number of women, dozens, who knows, to sign non-disclosure agreements both for sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace. So, Mr. Mayor, are you willing to release all of those women from those non-disclosure agreements so we can hear their side of the story?”
Bloomberg answered Sen. Warren claiming that the non-disclosure agreements are mainly because “maybe some of them didn’t like a joke I told.” Bloomberg further argued that the women wanted to sign the non-disclosure agreements and that “we’ll live with it.”
Bloomberg’s comment about women not liking his joke was met with boos and groans of disapproval from the shocked audience.
Sen. Warren also made sure to include that Bloomberg blamed the housing crisis on minorities.
During the housing crisis, Sen. Warren held hearing to figure out what was happening that forced millions of Americans from their homes. At the same time, Bloomberg was blaming Latinos and African-Americans for causing the housing crash.
What do you think about Mike Bloomberg’s record with minority communities?
