An inflammatory report about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) may have come from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) herself.
Back in 2018, Sanders and Warren had a meeting to discuss their likely presidential runs against each other, during which Sanders said he didn't think a woman could be elected, CNN reported earlier Monday. Sanders immediately slammed the report as "ludicrous," but more sources are now telling BuzzFeed News the comments match what Warren told them after the meeting.
Sanders and Warren were close friends before the 2020 race and have remained so throughout it, though things became tense Sunday morning when Warren said she's "disappointed" that Sanders was "sending his volunteers out to trash me." The CNN report only inflamed things further, with Sanders accusing the Warren campaign staffers who told CNN the story of "lying."
Yet three people who spoke to Warren in the weeks after her 2018 meeting with Sanders said CNN's reporting aligns with what they heard from Warren herself, they tell BuzzFeed News. And while Sanders acknowledged in his Monday statement that he told Warren that President Trump is a "sexist, a racist, and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could," sources who spoke to The New York Times said Sanders added that "such attacks would preclude a woman from being elected."
The Warren campaign has yet to respond to the reports, but Sanders' campaign manager gave yet another vehement declaration that the story was "a lie." Kathryn Krawczyk