Warren Nailed Bloomberg for Allegedly Telling a Pregnant Employee to “Kill It”

While delivering a powerful personal story about being discriminated against during her pregnancy, Senator Elizabeth Warren launched a direct attack against former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg over allegations he told an employee to “kill it,” when the employee told him she was pregnant.

“This is personal for me,” said Warren, who described being let go at the age of 21 from her job as a special education teacher after she became pregnant. Adding “at least I didn’t have a boss who said to me, ‘Kill it,’ the way that Mayor Bloomberg is alleged to have said to one of his pregnant employees.” 

Bloomberg has denied these allegations. However, the comment did appear in a 1997 sexual harassment lawsuit against Bloomberg, which he later settled. 

According the lawsuit, after suggesting his employee should get an abortion, Bloomberg said, “Great, number 16,” apparently a reference to the number of women who were pregnant at the company. 

Bloomberg has faced dozens of lawsuits throughout the years from women alleging discrimination and harassment at his company, who claim he created a hostile and degrading work environment. 

Warren has also attacked Bloomberg for his use of non-disclosure agreements, which she called an attempt to “muzzle” women who wanted to speak out against him.

Bloomberg has since publicly released released three women from non-disclosure agreements specifically related to comments made by the former mayor.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate