Sanders Campaign Calls MSNBC Commentator’s Criticism of Bernie ‘Anti-Feminist’

The Bernie Sanders campaign responded to an MSNBC commentator who said the Vermont senator made her “skin crawl” by posting a video featuring a Sanders campaign co-chairwoman declaring the criticism “anti-feminist.”

During a panel discussion last week about the upcoming debates and the fact that Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) will appear on the same stage, MSNBC legal analyst Mimi Rocah said Sanders made her “skin crawl.”

“I’m not the political analyst here, but just as a woman, probably considered a somewhat moderate Democrat … Bernie Sanders makes my skin crawl,” Rocah said, adding that she did not view him as a pro-woman candidate.

“And I can’t even identify for you what exactly it is. But I see him as sort of a not-pro-woman candidate. And so, having the two of them there — like, I don’t understand young women who support him,” she said.

“And I’m hoping having him next to her will help highlight that,” she added, referring to Warren.

Sanders’ campaign hit back Thursday with a video message featuring Sanders campaign co-chairwoman Nina Turner, who described Rocah’s remarks as “anti-feminist”:

“What I have to say to that is that it is wrong all day long and it is very anti-feminist,” Turner said before pointing out that famed feminist Gloria Steinem referred to Sanders as an “honorary woman” during his political battle against Republican Susan Sweetser in 1996.

At the time, Steinem described a feminist as someone who “challenges the power structure of our country” and declared that Sanders was “that kind of feminist”:

Sanders came under fire during his presidential run in 2015 after an essay from 1972 resurfaced in which he described women having rape fantasies. He wrote, “A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused. A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men simultaneously.”

Sanders addressed the controversial essay during an appearance on Meet the Press in May 2015, likening the essay to 50 Shades of Grey.

“Look. this is a piece of fiction I wrote in 1972, I think. That was 43 years ago. It was very poorly written,” Sanders admitted.

“If you read it, what it was dealing with [were] gender stereotypes. ‘Why some men like to oppress women, why other women like to be submissive,'” he continued. “Something like Fifty Shades of Grey. Very poorly written 40 years ago.”