Some in media suggested Monday that a group of Bernie Sanders supporters made a sexist gesture this weekend when they threw cash at Hillary Clinton’s motorcade as she drove to a high-roller fundraiser.
“Did you see them throwing dollar bills at her in the car? Why dollar bills? Is that some type of reference to, you know, sexual trade reference?” CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Hillary for America spokesman Brian Fallon Monday.
The money stunt, which saw protesters showering the Democratic front-runner’s vehicle with $1,000 in $1 bills, was meant to be a jab at Clinton’s ties to Wall Street and wealthy donors, one demonstrator told KABC-TV.
“When I think about the amount of money being raised at this fundraiser, the smallest ticket is $34,000 a plate. Even minimum-wage workers making $15 an hour would not even hit that,” one Sanders supporter, Francis Fisher, told the California ABC News affiliate.
Clinton dined Friday evening at a fundraiser hosted by noted attorney Amal Clooney and her husband, George Clooney.
But while demonstrators claimed their protest was meant to underscore Clinton’s ties to big money, several cable news personalities have asked whether there were also some insidious sexist undertones.
Cuomo, for example, tied the money-throwing demonstration to a moment last week when a Sanders surrogate referred to the Clinton wing of her party as “Democratic whores.”
“And did you hear that guy say, Democratic whores?” the CNN anchor asked Monday. “Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
“Now, to hear from the other side, they say, ‘Yeah, it is a coincidence, they’re throwing money.’ And the guy apologized for saying whores and said that he was talking about Congress, not Hillary Clinton. Do you believe there is sexism involved in her negative numbers?” he asked Fallon.
Cuomo kept after it, and queried CNN contributor and NY1 host Errol Louis on the supposed “sexism” of attacks on the former secretary of state, and asked whether her unfavorable polling has anything to do with respondents maybe being sexist as well.
“Everybody raises money from all kinds of sources, she’s the one they throw dollars bills at,” Louis responded.
“So you say it’s sexism, not the cascade of scandals?” Cuomo asked.
“I think there’s an element of that,” the NY1 host responded. “It doesn’t necessarily play itself out, I think, in the vote. But I think that’s what accounts for those polls.”
Cuomo’s CNN colleague, Brooke Baldwin, likewise pondered whether the demonstration this weekend was a none-too-subtle sexist jab at Clinton.
“Is it stupid? Or is it more than that? I’m curious. She’s the only female running for president, and it’s dollar bills. It’s imagery, I’m curious if you read anything more into that?” she asked Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., in a question that suggested Sanders’ supporters behaved in a manner befitting of a “gentlemen’s club.”
The congressman and Clinton supporter responded, “I think it’s stupid. I think they have money to throw away, literally. That’s not changing anything.”
Earlier, on MSNBC, pundit Joy-Ann Reid suggested that Friday’s protesters acted as if they were at a nudie show, and Clinton was a performer.
They were “throwing dollar bills as if in a strip club,” she said Sunday.
“This coming on the heels of a Bernie Sanders surrogate having to apologize for using the term ‘Democratic whores’ at the Washington Square Park rally,” she added. “That visual there, of throwing dollar bills at a woman as she’s going by in her motorcade, has the Democratic race gone over the edge?”
Clinton’s campaign responded to criticism from Sanders’ supporters by defending her role in the Clooney fundraiser, and they also knocked Sanders for not doing enough to raise cash for the Democratic Party.
“Hillary Clinton has made it a priority to raise money for Democrats up and down the ballot and we’re grateful to everyone who supports the party,” said Clinton campaign spokeswoman Christina Reynolds.
“We frequently hear about how much money Senator Sanders is raising, maybe he can send a few of those $27 donations to the [Democratic National Committee] and state parties across the country to help the party he hopes to lead,” she added.
