Michael Bloomberg
Michael BloombergReuters

Presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg once told a female employee to "kill it" after she announced her pregnancy, the Daily Mail reported.

The comment was made in April 1995 after the employee, top salesperson Sekiko Sakai Garrison, announced her pregnancy, and a former employee has said that Bloomberg spoke "crudely about women all the time."

A 1997 lawsuit was settled privately, but court documents confirm that he allegedly responded to the news by telling her to "kill it."

"Plaintiff asked Bloomberg to repeat himself, and again he said, 'Kill it!' and muttered, 'Great! Number 16!' suggesting to plaintiff his unhappiness that 16 women in the company had maternity-related status. Then he walked away," the document reads.

At a different time, when Garrison expressed frustration at her difficulties finding childcare, Bloomberg told her to hire "some black."

"It's a f***ing baby! All it does is eat and s**t! It doesn't know the difference between you and anyone else! All you need is some black who doesn't have to speak English to rescue it from a burning building," Bloomberg said in July 1993.

Another former Bloomberg employee, David Zielenziger, confirmed that his employer "talked kind of crudely about women all of the time." He also said that he had heard Bloomberg tell Garrison to "kill it."

"I remember she had been telling some of her girlfriends that she was pregnant," he told the Washington Post. "And Mike came out and I remember he said, 'Are you going to kill it?' And that stopped everything. And I couldn't believe it."

Zielenziger also said that he never spoke to Garrison about the incident and is not a party to the lawsuit.

The Daily Mail added that when Bloomberg heard that Garrison was upset, he left her a voicemail saying: "I didn't even know you were pregnant until the other day...(another employee) said you were all upset...whatever you heard wasn't what I said and whatever I said had nothing to do with pregnancies...I couldn't be happier you are having a child…I apologize if there was something you heard but I didn't say it, didn't mean it, didn't say it."

Bloomberg denied the comment about "some blacks" under oath during the lawsuit.

The Daily Mail also noted that there have been at least two reports of alleged sexual assault by Blommberg executives.

A spokesperson for Bloomberg's campaign did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Daily Mail.

On Saturday, reports said Bloomberg is considering taking former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as his running mate for November's elections.