‘You called me a liar on national TV.’ Elizabeth Warren confronts Bernie Sanders after debate
Elizabeth Warren accused Bernie Sanders of calling her a liar, audio of the senators’ confrontation after the Democratic debate revealed.
On Wednesday, CNN released audio of the post-debate moment in Des Moines. The news organization reported the conversation wasn’t captured on the primary audio feed and was found the day after the Democratic gathering.
During the primary debate Tuesday night, Sanders denied allegations that he told Warren during a 2018 meeting he didn’t believe a woman could win the presidency. Warren stood by the account, a sign of the fraying relationship between the senators from neighboring states, Sanders of Vermont and Warren of Massachusetts.
“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” Warren told Sanders as she strode toward him and turned down Sanders’ offer of a handshake, the CNN audio reveals.
“What?” he asked.
“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” she repeated.
“Let’s not do it right now,” Sanders said, putting a hand up. “You want to have that discussion, we’ll have that discussion.”
“Any time,” Warren interjected.
“You called me a liar, you told me —” Sanders began, before stopping himself. “All right, let’s not do it now.”
The escalating tiff between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren threatens to divide the Democratic left.
The two walked away from each other as rival candidate Tom Steyer, who had come up in the middle of their conversation, looked on.
“I don’t want to get in the middle of — I just want to say hi, Bernie,” Steyer said quickly, shaking Sanders’ hand.
“Yeah, good, OK,” Sanders replied.
Soon after the audio became public, Steyer decided to chime in.
“Just want to say hi, America,” he tweeted.
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