Bernie Sanders is denying a CNN report claiming he told fellow Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren a woman couldn’t win.
CNN claims the exchange happened during a meeting between the two back in December 2018, long before either had officially launched their respective campaigns.
CNN- The stakes were high when Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren met at Warren’s apartment in Washington, DC, one evening in December 2018. The longtime friends knew that they could soon be running against each other for president.
The two agreed that if they ultimately faced each other as presidential candidates, they should remain civil and avoid attacking one another, so as not to hurt the progressive movement. They also discussed how to best take on President Donald Trump, and Warren laid out two main reasons she believed she would be a strong candidate: She could make a robust argument about the economy and earn broad support from female voters.
Sanders responded that he did not believe a woman could win.
The Vermont Senator vehemently denied these allegations, noting that Hillary Clinton nearly defeated Donald Trump in 2016.
“It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn’t win,” Sanders said. “It’s sad that, three weeks before the Iowa caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren’t in the room are lying about what happened. What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could. Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016.”
Now, as we all know, Hillary Clinton did not “beat” Donald Trump in the election of 2016. Sure, she might have received a bigger share of the popular vote, but that’s like saying “we might have scored fewer runs, but we had more hits!”
Back to the particular issue facing the Democratic party: sexism.
Elizabeth Warren responded to a Politico report claiming Sanders instructed volunteers to tell voters that Warren wasn’t capable of bringing any new groups into the Democrat party.
“Bernie knows me and has known me for a long time,” Warren said. “He knows who I am, where I come from, what I have worked on and fought for and the coalition and grassroots movement we are trying to build. Democrats want to win in 2020 we all saw the impact of the factionalism in 2016 and we can’t have a repeat of that.”
“I hope Bernie reconsiders and turns his campaign in a different direction,” Warren added.
Bernie responded to Warren’s remarks, stating that he can’t be held responsible for the things his volunteers end up doing.
“We have over 500 people on our campaign,” he said. “People do certain things. I’m sure that on Elizabeth’s campaign people do certain things as well.”
“But you’ve heard me for months, I have never said a negative word about Elizabeth Warren, who is a friend of mine. We have differences on issues. That’s what a campaign is about.”
The next Democratic debate takes place tomorrow evening, so expect these issues to come up… That is, assuming you don’t have anything better to do than sit around and watch a bunch of millionaires complain for two hours… I suggest watching ANYTHING else.
Conservative Daily Update 