Democrat Debate: Bernie Sanders Denies Saying a Woman Cannot Win the Presidency

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) denied telling Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) that a woman cannot win the White House during Tuesday evening’s Debate debate in Iowa.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t say it, and I don’t want to waste a whole lot of time on this because this is what Donald Trump…would want,” Sanders replied when asked why he made the remark during a meeting with Warren.

All but ignoring Sanders’s response, Warren was then asked for her thoughts on the purported incident. “I disagreed,” Warren said, before adding: “Bernie is my friend and I’m not here to fight with Bernie.”

“I think the best way to talk about who can win is by looking at people’s winning record. So, can a woman beat Donald Trump? Look at the men on this stage,” the Massachusetts Democrat added. “Collectively, they have lost ten elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women, Amy and me. And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican any time in the past 30 years is me.”

On Monday, CNN, citing anonymous sources, reported that Sanders told Warren at her Washington apartment in December 2018 that a woman cannot win a general election contest against President Donald Trump in 2020.

The Vermont lawmaker vehemently denied making the remark in a statement to CNN.

“It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn’t win,” he said. “It’s sad that, three weeks before the Iowa caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren’t in the room are lying about what happened. What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist, and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could. Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016.”

Following Sanders’s denial, Warren issued a statement in which she claimed the Vermont senator indeed uttered the remark.

“Among the topics that came up was what would happen if Democrats nominated a female candidate. I thought a woman could win; he disagreed,” Warren recalled.