Elizabeth Warren Says She’s Disappointed That Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Is ‘Sending Volunteers To Trash Me’
Elizabeth Warren is speaking out against Bernie Sanders’ campaign after a leaked script showed that volunteers were being given instructions to criticize Warren in discussions with voters.
As NBC News reported, the Massachusetts senator spoke out on Sunday and called on Sanders to turn his campaign “in a different direction.”
“I was disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me,” she told NBC News. “Bernie knows me and has known me for a long time. He knows who I am, where I come from, what I have worked on and fought for and the coalition and grassroots movement we are trying to build. Democrats want to win in 2020 we all saw the impact of the factionalism in 2016 and we can’t have a repeat of that.”
Warren and Sanders have spoken frequently about their friendship as two of the more progressive members of the U.S. Senate, and have refrained from direct attacks against each other. But in her statement on Sunday, Warren said that Democrats need a candidate who can bring the party together and excite the base.
A report from Politico revealed that volunteers for the Sanders campaign were given a script that claimed Warren was the candidate of the “elites” who would not be able to expand the Democratic base. It said that Warren’s supporters are “highly educated, more affluent people” who would show up to the polls no matter what, while claiming that Sanders could bring in new voters who would lift up the party.
Warren hits back: “I was disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me. Bernie knows me and has known me for a long time…I hope bernie reconsiders and turns his campaign in a different direction.” Also notes the “factionalism” caused by 2016 https://t.co/ER0Vm6sgJS pic.twitter.com/N8prZdeZk9
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) January 12, 2020
The moves come as Sanders has seen an uptick in polling, steadily gaining ground on frontrunner Joe Biden. As USA Today noted, many pundits believed that Sanders’ chances were slim after he suffered a heart attack three months ago and had to undergo emergency surgery. He has since come back to take the lead in a series of critical polls, including one from the first voting state, Iowa.
Warren and Pete Buttigieg have fallen off in polls as well, leaving what could be a two-person race between Sanders and Biden for the nomination.
“I think the two people who will absolutely be in it until the end are Biden and Bernie,” Joe Trippi, a longtime Democratic campaign operative, told the newspaper. “Does it turn into a Biden-Bernie race the way Clinton-Bernie did? Or is it three or four other people, billionaires, fighting it out until the end? I don’t know.”
