NEWTON, Iowa — After saying Bernie Sanders lied about saying a woman couldn’t get elected president, Elizabeth Warren declared she wouldn’t be commenting on the matter any further.
Following her remarks at a town hall in Newton, Iowa, on Friday, where nearly 150 supporters showed up despite a snowstorm, the Massachusetts senator told the press that she would no longer speak about the controversy between her and Sanders, a Vermont senator. She also refused to answer a question over whether she and Sanders, 78, had spoken since Tuesday’s Democratic primary debate.
“I don’t have anything else to say,” said Warren, 70. “Yesterday was a day when all 100 senators were sworn in for impeachment proceedings against a president of the United States. … I’m focused on that.”
Despite fielding three more questions on the dispute, Warren declined to comment any further.
The public fight between the two started on Sunday when Warren criticized Sanders for a report that his campaign was instructing staffers to tell Iowa Democrats that Warren was incapable of building a broad coalition in the general election to defeat President Trump. Warren said she was “disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me.”
The following day, it was reported that Sanders told Warren in a 2018 meeting that a woman couldn’t win the White House. Sanders denied such a conversation took place, and those close to his campaign accused Warren of leaking the story in an act of desperation amid her lagging poll numbers.
“Bernie and I met for more than two hours in December 2018 to discuss the 2020 election, our past work together, and our shared goals: beating Donald Trump, taking back our government from the wealthy and well-connected, and building an economy that works for everyone,” she said in a statement.
The feud extended into that evening’s debate, with the two sharing an awkward moment caught on camera. In that exchange, Warren confronted Sanders and accused him of calling her a liar.
Members of Sanders’s campaigns attacked debate host CNN for bias, saying the way a question was asked about the alleged 2018 conversation was worded in a way that sided with Warren. A member of the Sanders campaign told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday night that neither Warren or Sanders had spoken yet.
