Tempers boiled over during a CNN interview as host Brianna Keilar and Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to Joe Biden, clashed on-air after Keilar pressed Sanders over whether the results of the Iowa caucuses were legitimate.
Keilar repeatedly asked Sanders on Wednesday about the botched first-in-the-nation contest while the Biden surrogate avoided answering the question. “Why can’t you say if the data is correct or incorrect,” the frustrated host said as Sanders dodged the question.
“Simone, here’s the deal, I’m going to interrupt you when you’re not answering the question. Is this data correct? In your view, is it correct?” Keilar added.
“Look, Brianna, I have not analyzed the back ends of the data,” Sanders responded. “What we are saying and what we have implored to the Iowa Democratic Party are two things. One, we have to make sure we get it right. Getting it right means checking, checking again, and triple-checking, and making sure that there is a paper trail, the presidential preference cards. Don’t try to paint this as we’re trying to say this is some kind of a conspiracy theory.”
Keilar ended the interview calling it “exhausting,” and Sanders mentioned that she needed coffee.
While a clear winner hasn’t emerged from the Feb. 3 opening Iowa caucuses, preliminary results show Biden languishing in fourth place behind former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, as well as Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, with 71% of precincts reporting. Biden told supporters in New Hampshire on Tuesday that his campaign “took a gut punch in Iowa.”
The release of results from Iowa has been slow-walked after a major snafu with an app designed to allow caucus chairman and chairwoman to report their precinct results to the party’s headquarters.
