A campaign official for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) presidential campaign has been advising supporters against accusing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) of sexism over his comment about whether a woman could win the 2020 race.
According to screenshots of a private Twitter group chat obtained by BuzzFeed News, the unnamed staffer told supporters on Monday night that the campaign’s goal was “de-escalation and focusing on our shared goals” after Warren released her statement on her conversation with Sanders.
Then, on Tuesday morning, the official advised the group to “be careful with the ‘sexism’ angle” because “that’s not what this is about and I think it’ll be really bad news for us if that becomes what this is about (i.e. press asking her if she thinks Bernie is sexist).”
“Is that what this is about broadly? Absolutely,” the staffer wrote. “But no one here is actually claiming Bernie himself is sexist (regardless of your own personal beliefs on that topic).”
“Claiming you’re worried a woman can’t win/flagging that she’ll receive sexist attacks is something many, many people feel,” the staffer also wrote, echoing Sanders’ explanation of his comment.
“What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could,” Sanders had said in his response to CNN’s report on the conversation. “Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016.”
