Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders dodged when asked if Sen. Al Franken should resign after being accused of forcibly kissing and groping a woman 10 years ago.
When asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” if he felt the accusations against Franken by Leanne Tweeden, along with a photo showing Franken appearing to grope Tweeden over her flack jacket while on a USO tour in 2006, Sanders demurred.
“I think that’s a decision for Al Franken and the people of the state of Minnesota,” Sanders said. “My understanding is that Al is a very poplar senator. People in Minnesota think that he is doing a good job and his political future will rest with the people of Minnesota.”
Sanders similarly dodged when he was asked if he felt, like New York Sen, Kirsten Gillibrand does, if then-President Bill Clinton should have resigned from his post during the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the 1990s.
“I don’t think that at this point our goal is to look back 20 years or 30 years,” Sanders said. “Our goal is to go forward and our goal is to understand that we have a real crisis in this country today within the political world, within the corporate world, within the media world, where women are being harassed every single day.”
Sanders said more needs to be done by lawmakers in order to bring the country’s sexual harassment and sexual assault laws in line with the place where the culture has moved.
“The world has changed and we have not caught up with that and obviously what has got to happen is women have been to be treated as equal citizens, have to be comfortable at work and have to be first class citizens in this country, which is now not the case,” he said.
