[Jake Tapper, Cnn:] Breaking news New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has just announced that he will allow women to be released from their nondisclosure agreements with his company if they want. Bloomberg says that they have identified three such NDAs. And he says that he's done a lot of reflecting and has decided going forward, his company won't offer confidentiality agreements to resolve claims of sexual misconduct. This, of course, comes after Senator Elizabeth Warren called out Bloomberg at this week's debate for his use, his use of nondisclosure agreements, more than three of them we should note. Let's let's discuss this. And I'll start with you. Is this going to be good enough? I suspect for Elizabeth Warren, it will not, if there's three NDAs that he's allowing.
[Sabrina Siddiqui, Cnn Political Analyst:] Well, I think it really shows, first and foremost, the impact of Senator Elizabeth Warren's attacks on Mayor Bloomberg during this week's Democratic debate with respect to his initial refusal to release these women from the NDAs. And I think the broader point that not to Senator Warren but some of Mayor Bloomberg's other Democratic rivals were trying to make is when it comes to taking on President Trump at the top of the ticket, they feel that if it's someone like Bloomberg who has come under scrutiny for prior comments about women, who has faced discrimination lawsuits at his company, they'll undercut their ability to go after President Trump over those very same issues. And so, I don't think that releasing them from the NDAs will take away scrutiny over his record.
[Tapper:] Alexandra, I want you to take a listen here at the CNN town hall last night with Senator Elizabeth Warren. She went a step further with her demand for Bloomberg releasing women from their NDAs. Take a listen.
[Sen. Elizabeth Warren , Presidential Candidate:] I used to teach contract law, 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 or men will be free to speak and tell their own stories. I think that the mayor should sign this and that we all have a right to see.
[Tapper:] Now, that's obviously not what he's done, although we're told he's identified three such NDAs that he's willing to waive.
[Alexandra Rojas, Executive Director, Justice Democrats:] Yes, I think cherry-picking is a bad look when we're talking about, I think, what, is it over 40 women, have complained about
[Tapper:] Forty people, employment problems, yes.
[Rojas:] Employment problems, or pregnancy discrimination, what-have- you. But that's not the only thing here. As recently as 2016, he was supporting Republican members getting elected. As recently as 2016, he's helping Republican get to the Senate. And so, I think there's a huge problem that ultimately speaks to the broader problem you were making that if we want to defeat Donald Trump as Democrats, we have to be able to take the moral high ground. We have to be able to bring out the best in the Democrats and not con draw the biggest contrasts, which is not a billionaire that kind of switches party, whenever it's convenient.
[Tapper:] And we also have some more breaking news, which is that "The Washington Post" is breaking and the Bernie Sanders campaign is confirming that he's been briefed on the fact that the Russian government has apparently been attempting to help his campaign in the election interference. One quick quote from Bernie Sanders' campaign: Unlike Donald Trump, I do not consider Vladimir Putin a good friend. He's an autocratic thug who's attempting to destroy democracy and crush dissent in Russia. Let's be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us up. And unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election. Bill?
[Bill Kristol, Conservative Columnist:] Yes, the Mueller report had quite a lot actually about Russia's interference in 2016 and trying to whip up Sanders supporters against Hillary Clinton both in the primary and I think even onto into the general election. Some of that might have worked. There were some Sanders, Trump voters and some Sanders voters stay at home. So, I mean, just on the Bloomberg thing for a minute
[Tapper:] Yes.
[Kristol:] -it's unclear to me how many he's releasing. Whether he'll release
[Tapper:] It says three NDAs. I don't know if that's more three women or three people or
[Kristol:] Or whether he will release if they wish to come forward. I would say this, Bloomberg is not a very good I hate NDAs. I really wish the whole law change on that. I refused to sign one when our owners closed "The Weekly Standard" and gave up a little bit of income, there were severances a result, it's just terrible. I mean, really, you think it's been so now abused. It's bad for the country. Leaving that aside, Bloomberg is not a very good candidate. He has a pretty good campaign. They move pretty quickly if you think about it. If these and people can still say, well, he did this. And it's not admirable what he did, but he can now say, look, I came under pressure, I rethought it, I released the people. What about Donald Trump? You haven't released anyone. So, I think I'm sort of impressed by the despite that pretty miserable debate performance Wednesday night, I think the Bloomberg campaign is adjusting to what happened pretty quickly.
[Rojas:] I think it's also important to remember that he has also spent $464 million so far and is definitely going to be spending hundreds of millions more to erase people remembering the debate performance
[Kristol:] Yes.
[Tapper:] We're going to keep talking about this. We're going to squeeze in a quick break. We'll be right back.