Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 11:55 am
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is denying a report about a conversation that he had with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), where he told her that a woman couldn’t win the White House.
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.
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Sanders denied the characterization of the meeting in a statement to CNN.
“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.”
After a Des Moines Register poll showed Sanders leading a very close race in Iowa, a Monmouth University poll of Iowa was released on Monday that revealed Biden leading both Sanders and Warren.
This story, if true, has the potential to immensely damaging for Sanders. Warren and Sanders have been dividing the progressive voting bloc throughout the campaign. Even though they haven’t attacked each other in the debates, but there has been open and increasingly ugly conflict between the two campaigns.
Progressives are urging the two sides to cool it:
.@BernieSanders and @ewarren, you both are progressive champs & our movement needs to see you working together to defeat your corporate Dem opponents — not attack each other.
Progressives will win in 2020, but only if we don't let the corporate wing or Trump divide us. ðŸ¤
— Democracy for America (@DFAaction) January 13, 2020
The CNN story is a hint that things are getting uglier in the Democratic primary, and if this story is accurate, Sen. Sanders may have suffered a blow that will be impossible to recover from.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
