Fiery debate fallout for Bloomberg

Former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg on Thursday made light of his first appearance on a 2020 debate stage, joking about the reception he received from the other candidates after his uneven debut.
5:13 | 02/21/20


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Transcript for Fiery debate fallout for Bloomberg
and to the race for 2020, and to the fallout today after last night's debate. Mike Bloomberg at a rally today on his performance, and he, in fact, asked the audience, how was your night last night? And Elizabeth Warren today saying, I'm tired of these billionaires. Here's ABC's Mary Bruce on the trail. Reporter: Michael Bloomberg today tried to laugh off his rocky debate debut. So, how was your night last night? Reporter: Senator Elizabeth Warren ready with this blistering attack. I'd like to talk about who we're running against. A billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians, and no, I'm not talking about Donald Trump, I'm talking about mayor Bloomberg. Reporter: Bloomberg forced to defend himself against allegations of sexism. In my company, lots and lots of women have big responsibilities, they get paid exactly the same as men. And in my -- in city hall, the person that's the top person, my deputy mayor, was a woman. 40% of our commissioners were women. And I hope you heard what his defense was. I've been nice to some women. That just doesn't cut it. Reporter: The senator pressed Bloomberg on claims that he tried to silence stories of alleged sexual harassment at his company. Mr. Mayor, are you willing to release all of those women from those nondisclosure agreements so we can hear their side of the story? We have a very few nondisclosure agreements -- How many is that? Let me finish. How many is that? None of them accuse me of doing anything other than maybe they didn't like a joke I told. And let me just -- there's agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet. I'm not going to get -- to end these agreements because they were made consensually and they have every right to expect that they will stay private. If they want to release it, they should be able to release themselves. Say yes. Reporter: Bloomberg's record as mayor under attack from front-runner, senator Bernie Sanders. Mr. Bloomberg had policies in New York City of stop and frisk, which went after African-American and Latino people in an outrageous way. If I go back and look at my time in office, the one thing that I'm really worried about, embarrassed about, was how it turned out with stop and frisk. And it's not whether he apologized or not. The policy was abhorrent. And it was in fact a violation of every right people have. Reporter: Bloomberg and Sanders are trying to make this a two-man race -- but mayor Pete buttigieg with a warning to voters. Let's put forward someone who's actually a Democrat. Look, we shouldn't have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out. Reporter: Buttigieg slammed senator Amy klobuchar for recently blanking on the name of the Mexican president. You're literally part of the committee that's overseeing these things. Are you trying to say that I'm dumb? Are you mocking me here, Pete? I'm saying you shouldn't trivialize that knowledge. I said, I made an error. People sometimes forget names. Can I just defend senator klobuchar for a minute? This is not right. I understand that she forgot a name. It happened -- it happens to everybody on this stage. Reporter: Bloomberg tried to make the case that a democratic socialist like Sanders can't take on trump. I can't think of a way to make it easier for Donald Trump to get re-elected than listening to this conversation. This is ridiculous. We're not going to throw out capitalism. We tried that. Other countries tried that. It was called communism and it just didn't work. Not communism, Mr. Bloomberg. That's a cheap shot. Reporter: Today, Bloomberg warned again that Sanders can't he just said, quote, if we choose a candidate who appeals to a small base like senator Sanders, it will be a fatal error. See, the small base is the working families of this country which are the vast majority of the country. Now, I think the small base that Mr. Bloomberg appeals to is the billionaire class. The debate continuing today. Mary Bruce with Sanders there. She's live in Nevada tonight. And Mary, there's a chance, because there's so many candidates on the democratic side, that no candidate will actually win enough delegates to clinch the nomination outright. And last night they were asked that question, whether the person with the most delegates in the end should become the democratic nominee, or if they should fight this out at the con vejs, and their answers were very telling on this. Reporter: David, Bernie Sanders was the only one on that stage to say that the candidate with the most delegates heading into the convention should be the nominee. All of his rivals said this process should be allowed to play out, so, today, I pressed Sanders on how he plans to tackle this. And he told me, quote, the democratic party has got to be democratic. David? All right, Mary Bruce tonight. Mary, thank you.


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