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Sen.Elizabeth Warrensaid Monday that Sen.Bernie Sandersonce told her in a private meeting that a woman couldn’t win the2020 election— a headline-grabbing claim that Sanders quickly denied.
Warren, 70, later supported this version of eventsin a statement via her campaign, saying she and Sanders, 78, had an hours-long private meeting in December 2018. There they discussed the upcoming presidential election and “our shared goals,” including “beatingDonald Trump” and championing progressive economic policies, she said Monday.
“Among the topics that came up was what would happen if Democrats nominated a female candidate,” she said. “I thought a woman could win; he disagreed.”
Sanders disputes this.
“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,” he told CNN in a statement. (His campaign did not respond to a request for comment from PEOPLE.)
The Washington Postreportedthat one person with knowledge of the conversation said Sanders didn’t say a woman couldn’t win the 2020 election but instead was saying Trump “would use nefarious tactics against the Democratic nominee,” supporting how Sanders characterized their discussion.
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Before Warren’s statement on the matter, Sanders’ campaign managertold CNNthe story was “a lie.” Sanders statement also blamed “staff who weren’t in the room [who] are lying about what happened,” even though Warren herself backed up that account.
While Warren’s statement this week took care to note she and Sanders “have been friends and allies in this fight for a long time” — and the two share many of the same values — there has reportedly been increasing friction between their campaigns in the final weeks before primary voting begins.
Over the weekend,Politicoreported thatthe Sanders campaign had issued talking points to volunteers to tell voters that people who support Warren are “highly educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what” and that “she’s bringing no new bases into the Democratic Party.”
Warren said that she was “disappointed” Sanders would send volunteers to “trash” her.
“The Sanders campaign did not challenge the authenticity of the [volunteer] script, but it declined to comment,”Politicoreported.
The two candidates will be part of Tuesday night’s Democratic debate in Des Moines, Iowa — the final debate before the Iowa caucus on Feb. 3 — and are almost sure to be asked about their December 2018 exchange and which of their accounts is accurate.
source: people.com
