The feud between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernard Sanders escalated after Tuesday night’s debate with her accusing him of calling her “a liar on national TV.”
Ms. Warren says Mr. Sanders, in a 2018 meeting, told her a woman couldn’t win the White House. Mr. Sanders disputes that. They had a somewhat polite disagreement over it on the stage during the debate.
But afterward, cameras caught Ms. Warren going straight to Mr. Sanders, rebuffing his outstretched hand and exchanging pointed words.
CNN on Wednesday isolated the audio and it shows Ms. Warren angry that Mr. Sanders didn’t agree with her assertion that he discounted women’s chances at winning the presidency.
“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” she told him.
Mr. Sanders, who’d been poised for a friendly handshake, seemed taken aback.
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“What?” he said.
She repeated herself: “I think you called me a liar on national TV.”
“You know, let’s not do it right now. You want to have that discussion, we’ll have that discussion,” Mr. Sanders countered.
“Anytime,” Ms. Warren said.
Mr. Sanders then pointed out that from his point of view it was Ms. Warren who was accusing him.
“You called me a liar. You told me—” he said, before cutting himself off and saying, “All right, let’s not do it now.”
The two senators had been working under a sort of non-aggression pact for much of the campaign, training their fire on the less liberal members of the field.
But that evaporated over the weekend with CNN’s report that Mr. Sanders, in a 2018 meeting, had told Ms. Warren women couldn’t win.
Ms. Warren, in a statement, confirmed that version, and repeated that assertion during Tuesday’s debate.
Mr. Sanders not only denies the accusation but says it’s preposterous. He points to a video from 30 years ago where he said a woman could win. And he said he had been ready to defer to Ms. Warren and not mounted his own campaign in 2016 if she’d chosen to run then.
When Ms. Warren didn’t run, Mr. Sanders entered the race and became the chief opponent top eventual nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Mr Sanders said Mrs. Clinton, though she lost the presidency in the Electoral College, proved a woman could win by garnering 3 million votes more than Mr. Trump in the popular vote count.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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