Bernie Sanders aide denies report he considered a primary challenge to Obama

Bernie Sanders.
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

It didn't take long for the Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) camp to respond to a report published earlier Wednesday by The Atlantic in which former President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign manager Jim Messina said Sanders considered mounting a primary challenge that year.

In the report, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was named as the person who talked Sanders out of the idea, but Sanders' deputy campaign manager Rabin-Havt said Wednesday that conversation didn't take place, and Sanders hadn't even thought about running. "Bernie Sanders never considered a primary challenge to Obama," he said.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.