US Senator Elizabeth Warren said that fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders told her when they met privately in 2018 that he did not think a woman could win the White House.
Sanders has denied that, but Warren said in a statement on Monday that during their two-hour meeting two years ago to discuss this year’s US presidential election, “among the topics that came up was what would happen if Democrats nominated a female candidate. I thought a woman could win; he disagreed.”
The dispute marked an extraordinary turning point in a Democratic primary that, with few exceptions, has been characterized by genial differences over domestic issues such as healthcare.
The feud brewing between Warren and Sanders will likely change the tone of the campaign going into yesterday’s debate and came less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses launch the Democratic contest.
It also marks a jarring split between the two long-time progressive allies, potentially giving an opening for a more moderate rival, such as former US vice president Joe Biden, to attempt unifying the party.
Warren said in the statement that she and Sanders “have far more in common than our differences on punditry.”
“I’m in this race to talk about what’s broken in this country and how to fix it — and that’s what I’m going to continue to do,” she said. “I know Bernie is in the race for the same reason. We have been friends and allies in this fight for a long time, and I have no doubt we will continue to work together to defeat [US President] Donald Trump and put our government on the side of the people.”
CNN first reported Sanders’ comment earlier on Monday, based on the accounts of anonymous people with knowledge of the meeting. That drew a swift and strong denial from Sanders, who said: “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 aides then accused Warren’s campaign of leaking what they said was an inaccurate description of what was said during the meeting. That helped prompt Warren’s statement hours later.
Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Sanders, then seemed to try and defuse the situation, refusing to refute Warren’s version and instead saying on CNN on Monday night that “those conversations can sometimes get misconstrued.”
Still, the controversy is likely to revive anxiety among Democrats about whether — nearly four years after former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton lost her White House bid — voters are willing to support another woman running for president.
Such questions have dogged Warren and other female candidates throughout the campaign for this year’s election.
Stephanie Taylor and Adam Green, cofounders of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has at times praised both Warren and Sanders, on Monday said in a statement that they “believe that a back-and-forth about this private meeting is counterproductive for progressives.”
“In this pivotal moment of the campaign, progressives must work together to defeat Donald Trump,” they said.
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