Bernie Sanders Press Secretary Falsely Claims Mike Bloomberg Has Faced 64 Cases of Sexual Assault
Briahna Joy Gray, the national press secretary for Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, falsely claimed — during a Tuesday afternoon appearance on CNN — that Mike Bloomberg has faced 64 cases of sexual assault.
In fairness to Gray, things can get a bit tricky when a campaign and massive company the candidate founded share the same name, and the mixup of sexual harassment and assault is probably more common than it should be. But a press secretary’s job is to be precise with his or her language, and alleging that the former New York mayor has faced 64 cases of sexual assault is kind of a big mistake.
CNN anchor Brianna Keilar asked the Sanders campaign official if she and Senator Sanders were going to focus on some of the allegations of sexual harassment that occurred at Bloomberg under his watch.
Gray replied, “when it comes to these issues of sexual harassment There have been 64 sexual assault allegations leveraged against Michael Bloomberg” before suggesting that these women should get released by Bloomberg from their non-disclosure agreements.
Fact Check: Bloomberg has not faced 64 sexual assault allegations, nor has he faced any as of this writing. Gray said she meant to say harassment, and issued a clarification on Twitter:
You’re right. I misspoke and I am more than happy to correct it. It’s 64 sexual harassment allegations.
My sincerest apologies. https://t.co/2kXaVDNrFe
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) February 18, 2020
Watch above via CNN.
