Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have been longtime friends and allies, but as the 2020 election cycle heats up the progressive candidates are now at odds. The spat between the two came when Warren claimed Sanders told her during a private meeting in 2018 that a woman could not be president.
Sanders has adamantly denied those claims, but they became a topic of discussion at the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University on Tuesday, January 14.
Bernie previously said it was “ludicrous” to believe he would tell Warren a woman couldn’t win the election and he echoed those statements on the debate stage.
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t say it, and I don’t want to waste a whole lot of time on this because this is what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want,” Sanders said. “Anyone who knows me knows that it’s incomprehensible that I would think that a woman could not be president of the United States.,, How could anybody in a million years not believe that a woman could not be president of the United States?”
Warren, however, was able to have a calculated response that led to her best moment of the debate.
“This question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised and it’s time for us to attack it head on. And I think the best way to talk about who can win is by looking at people’s winning records,” Warren said. “So, can a woman beat Donald Trump? Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women, Amy [Klobuchar] and me.”
While they avoided directly confronting each other on stage, there was a tense moment afterwards that appeared to include a handshake snub from Warren before the two exchanged some words.
It will be interesting to see whether the two former friends will now begin ramping up their attacks against each other with the Iowa caucus set to take place in just under two weeks.
