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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Reid responded to the story, as well, and similarly said he wouldn't comment on private chats, but he did suggest Sanders probably had more important things to worry about at the time. "Bernie was running for re-election in 2012," Reid said. "He would've been a fool to run against Obama and Bernie's no fool."

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.