Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said Wednesday that she felt physically “threatened” at the Nevada Democratic Convention on Saturday.
Boxer, a supporter of Hillary Clinton who spoke at the convention, told CNN’s Kate Bolduan that the situation was “frightening,” noting that if she didn’t have security present, she isn’t sure “what would have happened.
“It was a scary situation. I was there, I saw it,” Boxer said. “It was frightening. I was on the stage and people were six feet away from me. And if I didn’t have a lot of security, I don’t know what would have happened.”
“When you have people not listening to a word and angry, their faces red. They were shouting obscenities,” Boxer said. “It was a frightening situation. It was not under control.”
While she spoke, Sanders supporters hurled insults and chanted “Bernie or bust” while issuing threats toward Nevada Democratic Party chairwoman Roberta Lange.
“We need to unite. I’m not going to tell Bernie Sanders, my colleague and my friend, what to do. He knows how I feel. He knows that I felt threatened. He knows that it was wrong. Now we well see, in my mind, when he says that he does not support any type of violence, I believe him, and he’s got to make sure it doesn’t happen. People will follow his lead, and if they don’t, that’s a whole other problem.”
Since Saturday, the Sanders campaign has engaged in a public back-and-forth with Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who said late Tuesday that Sanders added “fuel to the fire” for his supporters at the Saturday convention.
In response, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver pushed back, saying that while many at the DNC have been helpful to their campaign, Wasserman Schultz has been the “exception,” adding that she has been “throwing shade” at the campaign. Wasserman Schultz disagreed, telling Wolf Blitzer “hashtag smh.”
