Sen. Bernie Sanders apologized to Joe Biden for an opinion piece written by one of his campaign supporters that claimed the former vice president has a “big corruption problem and it makes him a weak candidate.”
“It is absolutely not my view that Joe is corrupt in any way. And I’m sorry that that op-ed appeared,” Sanders, 78, told CBS News on Monday, calling Biden a “friend.”
In an exclusive interview with CBS News’ @CaraKorte, Bernie Sanders pushed back against an op-ed claiming Joe Biden has a “big corruption problem.” https://t.co/qUu8renXaO pic.twitter.com/OW69A331tm
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 21, 2020
The 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner thanked Sanders for the apology in a tweet and added, “These kinds of attacks have no place in this primary. Let’s all keep our focus on making Donald Trump a one-term president.”
Thanks for acknowledging this, Bernie. These kinds of attacks have no place in this primary. Let’s all keep our focus on making Donald Trump a one-term president. https://t.co/tmFbLm98xd
— Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) January 21, 2020
The opinion piece, written by law professor Zephyr Teachout, said Biden, 77, “has perfected the art of taking big contributions, then representing his corporate donors at the cost of middle- and working-class Americans.”
“Whether or not Biden is making choices to please donors, there is no doubt his record represents the transactional, grossly corrupt culture in Washington that long precedes Trump,” she wrote in the Guardian.
Teachout, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2016, has appeared with the Vermont senator on the 2020 campaign trail.
The op-ed was published amid Sanders and Biden’s feud over the latter’s past remarks on Social Security funding. Biden has accused Sanders of releasing “doctored” footage that appears to show him agreeing with former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan about privatizing the program and has asked Sanders for an apology.
“[Biden] is a decent person. He is a friend of mine. People like him. And we’re not going to make personal attacks on Joe Biden, but I think the record shows that Joe’s history in the Senate and my history in Congress are very different,” Sanders said Sunday.
“I think it is important to know where a senator has come from and where his head is at. And Joe’s record on [Social Security] is a little different than mine,” he added.
Biden called Sanders’s claims about his record a “flat lie.”
