Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday declined to say he would release female employees within his financial and media empire from non-disclosure agreements dealing with alleged sexual harassment and gender discrimination.

“We have a very few nondisclosure agreements,” Mr. Bloomberg said at the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas. “None of them accused me of doing anything other than maybe they didn’t like a joke I told.”

“There’s agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet, and that’s up to them. They signed those agreements and we’ll live with it,” he said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts asked him if he was releasing them from the commitment.

“The company and somebody else, a man or a woman - or could be more than that - they decided when they made an agreement they wanted to keep it quiet for everybody’s interest,” he said. “They signed the agreements and that’s what we’re going to live with.”

Ms. Warren said the issue presents a question about electability.

“We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who-knows-how-many nondisclosure agreements and the drip-drip-drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against. That’s not what we do as Democrats,” she said.

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