Harassment Allegations And Lawsuits
Bloomberg has long been the subject of allegations of sexual harassment, with four women filing sexual-harassment or discrimination suits against his company with Bloomberg himself as the primary target.
Sekiko Sakai Garrison, a former Bloomberg sales representative, alleged a history of sexual harassment by Bloomberg in her lawsuit against the company. Garrison alleged that when she came into work wearing an engagement ring, Bloomberg ridiculed her appearance, allegedly asking Garrison: What, is the guy dumb and blind? What the hell is he marrying you for? When Garrison later became pregnant, she alleged that Bloomberg told her to Kill it! before muttering Great, No. 16 in reference to the sixteen women at the company who were then pregnant.
Bloomberg denied all allegations, going so far as to claim he passed a lie detector test but refusing to release the results. Despite denying making the comments, Bloomberg reportedly called Garrison, claiming that he didnt say the statements on her pregnancy, but if I said it, I didnt mean it. Despite denying the claims regarding Garrisons pregnancy, Bloomberg conceded that he had said of Garrison and other female employees Id do her, while insisting that doing someone meant to have a personal relationship. Garrison settled the lawsuit with undisclosed terms in 2000.
Bloomberg Thinks Theres A Path For Him
Bloomberg is running as a centrist alternative to the more progressive candidates in the field, and appears to be trying to occupy the space Biden and Pete Buttigieg are competing in. His entrance into the race has caused some eye-rolls hes swooping in late in the game, when voters arguably already have a number of candidates with similar platforms to choose from. Granted, some of these candidates are not as well known as Bloomberg is, andhe has the money to pay for his bid, regardless of any pushback.
As a candidate, Bloomberg is likely to focus on many of the same issues hes championed in recent years: namely, gun control and climate change. He previewed this emphasis in speeches and appearances ahead of his announcement.
During a speech in New Hampshire in January, Bloomberg talked about the need for commonsense gun laws, but was moderate in his rhetoric. Nobodys trying to take away anybodys guns, but we shouldnt be selling guns to criminals or people with psychiatric problems or minors, he said. During the same speech, he touted his record on climate and pointed out hes been working on the issue for more than a dozen years.
He visited Iowa in 2018, and prior to his arrival wrote an op-ed in the Des Moines Register in which he discussed the possibilities for clean energy in the state and the economic impact embracing green energy could have. He hosted a screening there of his new climate change documentary, Paris to Pittsburgh.
Politifact: Michael Bloomberg Is Registered As A Democrat But Is He Accepted As One
- Tom Kertscher, PolitiFact Staff Writer
Michael Bloomberg is a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination despite being first elected mayor of New York City as a Republican, and later switching his party affiliation to independent.
Indeed, he announced his re-registration as a Democrat in October 2019 just weeks before unveiling his presidential bid.
That history and the billionaire businessmans penchant for donating to Republicans has led to consternation among some Democrats who wonder whether Bloomberg is really one of them.
So is he?
Hes never been as good a Democrat as Ronald Reagan was a Republican, Jim Frasier, former member of the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee, told PolitiFact. Hes every bit as good a Democrat as Bernie Sanders is.
In 1980, Reagan was elected president as a Republican, after having spent much of his early political life as a Democrat. In 2016, Sanders was runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination, though he hasnt always identified as a member of the party.
Bloombergs campaign didnt offer comment for this article. But in a June 2018 column, Bloomberg explained why he was supporting Democrats in their attempts to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives that year.
Bloombergs form of bipartisanship, seen by some as a pattern of contradictions, can be confusing:
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Later Activities And Presidential Run
After leaving office, Bloomberg returned to managing his namesake financial data and media company, Bloomberg LP. He continued to be involved in environmental causes, and in 2017 he published Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet . In 2018 Bloomberg launched the American Cities Climate Challenge, a $70 million program to help 20 cities fight climate change. The initiative came a year after Republican Pres. Donald Trump announced that he was withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change. A vocal opponent of Trump, Bloomberg pledged to spend at least $80 million to defeat Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections. That year he reregistered as a Democrat, raising speculation that he would run for president in 2020. Although Bloomberg announced in March 2019 that he would not seek the presidency, in November he officially entered the race. Despite spending more than $500 million, he struggled to gain support, especially after poor performances in two debates. In March 2020 he ended his campaign and announced his support for Joe Biden.
Bloomberg was the recipient of numerous honours, including the 2009 Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service. In 2014 he was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire .
Leaked Comments On Race And Policing In Defense Of Stop
In February 2020, Bloomberg’s 2015 comments at an Aspen Institute event leaked. In the leaked comments, the former mayor defended the controversial stop-and-frisk policy he had implemented as mayor in New York City.
Bloomberg claimed, “95% of your murders murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities, sixteen to twenty-five. Thats true in New York, thats true in virtually every city”.
Bloomberg also noted, “You want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods… So, one of the unintended consequences is people say, Oh my god, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities. Yes, thats true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, thats true. Why do we do it? Because thats where all the crime is.”
To contextualize Bloomberg’s comments, some conservative media outlets included New York City’s 2019 crime statistics when reporting on the story.
National Interest noted that, according to the NYPD’s 2019 Crime and Enforcement Activity report, “62.4% of murder or non-negligent manslaughter suspects were black, while another 30.8% of suspects were Hispanic. Whites made up only 3% of murder suspects. The racial percentages are similarly distributed among those arrested for murder or non-negligent manslaughter.”
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Meet Michael Bloomberg Democratic Presidential Candidate
Update: Michael Bloomberg announced on March 4, 2020, that he was ending his campaign.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to be taking the advice of John Maynard Keynes. The legendary economist is said to have remarked, When the facts change, I change my mind. Back in March, Bloomberg announced he wouldnt run for president in 2020. But he also warned: We cannot allow the primary process to drag the party to an extreme that would diminish our chances in the general election and translate into Four More Years. Flash forward eight months. With presumed favorite Joe Biden foundering in the polls and Elizabeth Warren rising in them, Bloomberg has now jumped into the race. He shares some similarities with his new rivals. Like Warren, he is divorced and used to be a Republican. Like Corey Booker, Pete Buttigieg, , and Bernie Sanders, he has been a mayor. And like Tom Steyer, he founded his own, very successful, business. If Bloomberg wins the White House, he will become the oldest person and the first Jewish American ever elected president.
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Divorced. Lives with domestic partner, Diana Taylor
Children: Georgina and Emma
Alma Mater: Johns Hopkins University Harvard University
Career: Partner at Salomon Brothers, founder of Bloomberg, three-term mayor of New York City .
Twitter Handle: @MikeBloomberg
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Michael Bloomberg Briefly Explained
Bloomberg was born in Boston and grew up in the surrounding area before attending college at Johns Hopkins University and, later, Harvard Business School. He subsequently joined Wall Street brokerage Salomon Brothers but after more than a decade at the firm was laid off after it was acquired with a $10 million severance. In 1981, he used that money to launch what would eventually become Bloomberg LP. The company initially sold computer terminals with financial information to Wall Street and has now expanded to become a media and technology giant with some 19,000 employees.
He was a Democrat before his 2001 mayoral run in New York City, but switched to the Republican Party for his bid and subsequently won. He became an independent in 2007 and served three terms as mayor.
Since leaving city hall, Bloomberg, who is worth an estimated $52 billion, has dedicated his time to Bloomberg Philanthropies, an organization that encompasses all of Bloombergs charitable giving and focuses on five main arenas: public health, the environment, education, government innovation, and arts and culture. The Chronicle of Philanthropy listed Bloomberg as the second-most generous philanthropist of 2018, behind Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos. He gave $1.8 billion to his alma mater Johns Hopkins in 2018, which as Voxs Dylan Matthews explained, while nice, was a sort of wasted opportunity with that money, he could have done other things to boost college affordability.
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Undisclosed Conflicts Of Interest
From 2010 to 2012, Bloomberg LP spent $2.5 million lobbying on financial issues, a fact not disclosed in his Fix the Debt biography. Most of Bloomberg LPs lobbyists previously held federal government jobs. His long-term partner is Diana L. Taylor, who is the state banking superintendent for the State of New York as well as a board member of Citigroup with an annual compensation of $316,250 in 2011, and of Brookfield Properties. Citigroup lobbies on corporate tax reform. Bloomberg has long been sympathetic to the deficit reduction crowd. In a March 2012 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg complained about the President asking millionaires and billionaires to do more to fix the debt calling it “class warfare,” and backed the $4 trillion Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan. He also expressed support for the expiration of Bush tax cuts for all income levels, which would have been a large hike on the poor and middle class. Bloomberg pushed the “No Budget, No Pay” bill stunt backed by Fix the Debt partner organization Comeback America Initiative, which passed the U.S. House in January 2013, but was promptly denounced as unconstitutional. In 2011, Bloomberg proposed his own $8 trillion deficit reduction plan that would entail steep cuts to Social Security and Medicare and proposed to raise the retirement age.
Did He Really Ban Big Gulps
He did not. But he tried. Sort of. As mayor, Mr. Bloomberg hoped to impose limits on the sale of large sugary drinks, but the initiative failed in the courts. Even if it hadnt, Mr. Bloombergs plan included exemptions for convenience stores like 7-Eleven, with its outsize Big Gulp. This has not stopped critics from invoking the Big Gulp as a symbol of what they view as Bloombergian policy overreach.
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In 2013 After The Boston Marathon Bombing Bloomberg Called For Constitutional Privacy Protections To Be Weakened According To The Atlantic
We have to understand that in the world going forward,he said, were going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. Thats good in some senses, but its different than what we are used to. And the people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry, but we live in a complex world where youre going to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution I think have to change.
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What Is Rent Control
Bloomberg and Alfred Sommer, a prominent ophthalmologist he knew through their affiliation with Hopkins, were eating steaks one night when the businessman asked a surprising question.
What do you think about me running for mayor?
Why would you want to do that? Sommer replied. Why would anyone want to do that?
As he contemplated a different path, Bloomberg consulted a long list of political operatives, including Bill Cunningham, a former adviser to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan .
You have any idea what guys like me do to guys like you? Cunningham recalled asking. He warned that Bloombergs wealth would be a bulls eye for opponents lampooning him as an out-of-touch oligarch.
Thats whats wrong with politics, Bloomberg snapped. He insisted that he was more than his money and that he had the credentials to govern.
Cunningham joined a growing cast of strategists around Bloomberg, a troupe including New Yorks preeminent political guru, David Garth, who had steered Lindsay, Democrat Ed Koch and Giuliani to mayoral victories.
Their new boss, they learned, had no patience for chitchat or navel-gazing. He could be blunt, profane and biting.
How do you live with her? Bloomberg said when meeting the husband of Ester Fuchs, by then a policy adviser, who was flabbergasted until she saw the billionaires smirk.
He also had a lot to learn about New York politics.
Heres your money. Go tour, Bloomberg said when they landed, Ayarza recalled.
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Take Care Of Your Kids
On the 10th anniversary of the attacks, as bagpipers played and New York paused to reflect, Bloomberg presided over the opening of the 9/11 Memorial, a milestone that drew President Barack Obama and more than 10,000 relatives of the dead.
Soaring over the ceremony was the rising symbol of New Yorks recovery 82 of the 104 stories that would become the new World Trade Center.
We can never un-see what happened here, Bloomberg told the crowd assembled alongside two memorial pools tracing the footprints of the fallen towers. Etched in bronze parapets were the nearly 3,000 names of the dead, including that of Peter Alderman.
Over the years, Bloomberg had prodded the city to move past its collective grief. Giuliani had envisioned Ground Zero as a 16-acre memorial. Bloomberg wanted a smaller memorial and pushed for new offices and schools. He warned of turning downtown into a cemetery.
When he spoke to relatives of the dead still in the throes of grief, Bloomberg felt the urge to say, Suck it up, as his parents had taught him.
I thought to myself, Its tragic, but youve got to take care of your kids, he said. You dont want to be crying. You want to be talking about the future What can I do to help your kids?’ ‘What can I do to help you? rather than look back. Looking back isnt going to help.
On another wall, behind glass, was a campaign flier with the date in white letters Tuesday, Sept. 11 reminding voters to support a Republican on that days ballot.
Activities Prior To Campaign Launch
In March 2019, Bloomberg originally announced that he would not run for president.
However, on November 7, 2019, Bloomberg changed his mind and announced that he was taking steps to enter the 2020 United States presidential election, and on November 8 he officially filed for the Alabama Democratic presidential primary. After qualifying in Michigan, on November 12, he filed his candidacy for the Arkansas primary. On November 13, he applied for the Tennessee ballot. On November 19, he gave three separate transactions of $106,500 to the Democratic National Committee along with $800,000 to the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund.
Headquartered at facilities provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the campaigns staff at pre-launch included senior advisors Howard Wolfson, communications adviser Jason Schecter, advertising creator Bill Knapp, pollster Doug Schoen along with sometimes Bloomberg Philanthropies CEO Patti Harris and political consultants Brynne Craig, Mitch Stewart, and Dan Wagner and, at launch, Kevin Sheekey was campaign manager.
On November 21, 2019, Bloomberg filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission to declare himself as a Democratic candidate for president, though he said this was not a formal announcement, but a step towards making one if he decides to run.
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Michael Bloomberg Then And Now: Where The Former Republican Mayor Stands On Key Issues In 2020 Democratic Race
Michael Bloomberg is quickly becoming one of the top competitors in the Democratic primary for president despite being elected mayor of New York City three times as anything but a Democrat.
The 78-year-old billionaire was a lifelong liberal until he switched to the Republican Party in 2001 in order to get elected. Six years later, he abandoned the GOP and registered as an independentalthough the switch didn’t seem to bother Republicans, as they supported his bid for a third mayoral term in 2009. Bloomberg remained an independent until 2018 when he became a Democrat in order to run for president.
“What I feel is consistent about Mike Bloomberg is that he doesn’t care what people think in the sense of party politics,” New York-based Republican strategist Susan Del Percio told Newsweek.
“He ran the city through a dollars-and-cents management style but when it came to public policy on other issues, he definitely was more to the left. He just wants to get the job done.”
Much like with his party registration, Bloomberg has played both sides of the aisle when making campaign contributions. He spent $11 million helping GOP Senator Pat Toomey get re-elected in 2016, a major victory for Senator Mitch McConnell to keep control of the chamber. In the following election cycle, he poured tens of millions of dollars to help Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives.
