Tag: Sanders

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Senator Bernie Sanders Slams Manchin, Sinema For Intentionally Sabotaging Biden’s Agenda

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Senator Bernie Sanders(I-VT) appeared on ABC’s This Week show(07/17/22) to discuss President Biden’s controversial trip to Saudi Arabia. Unsurprisingly, Senator Sanders, who has been very consistent about his displeasure with Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses, was opposed to President Biden’s trip to the Kingdom, which he said, was tantamount to rewarding the Saudis.

The interesting part of the interview however came when host Martha Raddatz asked Sen Sanders about Senator Joe Manchin(D-WV) “abruptly” pulling out of negotiations on a climate change proposal that was key to President Biden’s agenda. Sen Sanders swiftly interjected saying, Manchin “didn’t abruptly pull out of anything”, and then proceeded to slam the Senator from West Virginia for intentionally sabotaging President Biden’s agenda. Whoa!!

Host Martha Raddatz(video at 3:20):“Senator Joe Manchin…abruptly pulled the plug on the Democrats’ plan to pass…”

Sen Sanders:“No Martha…he didn’t abruptly do anything…If you check the record, six months ago I made it clear, that you have people like Manchin, Sinema to a lesser degree, who are intentionally sabotaging the President’s agenda, what the American people want, what a majority of us in the Democratic caucus want. Nothing is new about this, and the problem was that we continued to talk to Manchin like he was serious. He was not. This is a guy who is a major recipient of fossil fuel money, a guy who received campaign contributions from 25 Republican billionaires.”

When host Raddatz tried to play devil’s advocate, saying Senator Manchin is concerned about record inflation, and is simply doing what’s best for West Virginians, Sen Manchin retorted:“Same nonsense that Manchin has been talking about for a year. West Virginia is a beautiful state…great people. It is one of the poorest states in this country. You ask the people of West Virginia whether they want to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing and eye glasses…whether we should demand that the wealthiest people and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes…whether or not all people should have healthcare as a human right like every other country on earth, that’s what they will say. In my humble opinion, Manchin represents the wealthiest people in this country, not the working families of West Virginia, or America.”

Bottom line folks, what Sen Sanders said on ABC’s This Week show, cannot be restated enough. There was a lot of hope and enthusiasm among Democrats, and a sizable chunk of Independents who voted for the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020, that the Biden-Harris administration would embark on big projects re infrastructure, climate, immigration, etc to set the country up nicely for the future. You even heard famous historians likening Biden to FDR and LBJ–both of whom are remembered for the big projects their administrations embarked, on and delivered.

However, somewhere in some Republican smoke-filled rooms, panic set in over the prospect of a transformational FDR-type Biden-Harris administration, and an elaborate plan was laid out to sabotage Biden’s presidency. Sen Sanders is absolutely right that Senators Manchin and Sinema have been willing participants in the grand GOP scheme to sabotage the Biden presidency, and they must be called out for it!!

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Why Are You Still Running?Bernie Asked

In case you missed it Sen Bernie Sanders appeared on ABC’s popular daytime show The View where one of the co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg confronted him about the rationale for his still active presidential campaign.

Whoopi Goldberg was simply echoing the sentiment by many Democrats that as the race currently stands, Sen Sanders has an extremely narrow path to victory and his campaign at this juncture is only hurting the eventual Dem nominee (presumably Biden) in much the same way it hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Whoopi Goldberg dove right into it :“I have to ask you this question now because I’ve been watching to see what you’re going to do and I’m told that you intend to stay in this race for president because you believe there’s a path to victory. I want to know what that path is because this feels a little bit like it did when you didn’t come out when Hillary Clinton was clearly the person folks were going for.”

Sen Sanders pushed back on Whoopi’s characterization, pointing out that he worked for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 to which Whoopi interjected, “Bernie just so we’re clear, you worked for Hillary but it took you a very very long time to hop in and your people also, it took a very long time for them to hop in.”

Sen Sanders then addressed the question as to why he’s still in the presidential race saying, “Last I heard, people in a democracy have a right to vote and they have a right to vote for the agenda that they think can work for America especially in this very very difficult moment [coronavirus]. We are assessing our campaign as a matter of fact, whether we want to go forward. But people in a democracy do have a right to vote.”

Sen Sanders then appeared to suggest that questions brought about by the current coronavirus pandemic justified his presidential campaign–that voters needed to decide which candidate provided the best solutions to the current crisis. Whoopi Goldberg correctly shot down this argument saying Sen Sanders can still work on coronavirus solutions in the senate even if he ended his presidential campaign.

It cannot also be left unsaid that Sen Sanders campaign is unnecessarily burdening beloved Democrats Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Sen Elizabeth Warren, who have clearly seen the writing on the wall but are reluctant to urge Bernie to step aside. Sen Sanders should do both AOC and Sen Warren a favor by ending his campaign thereby freeing them to throw their weight behind Biden without being villified by progressives.

Bottom line Democrats, we have to be careful not to repeat in 2020 our “sin” in 2016 and that is, engaging in an unnecessarily protracted presidential primary that ultimately helps only one person–Trump. The results of the recent presidential primary elections show very clearly that Dems have settled on Biden and that Bernie has an extremely narrow path to victory. There is absolutely no valid reason why Bernie should still be prolonging the Democratic presidential primary, especially now that the coronavirus pandemic is complicating efforts by the states to conduct primaries.

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Biden Says Bernie Didn’t Think Hillary Was Entitled To Nomination Despite Delegate Lead

Former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, riding off his big primary win in South Carolina, was on the Sunday show circuit doing a much-deserved victory lap. On one of his circuit stops–ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos–Biden made a notable dig against his chief opponent Bernie Sanders when he was asked whether Democrats should hand Sanders the nomination if he is leading in delegate count when the convention comes around.

Host Stephanopoulos :“Senator Sanders is likely to have a large delegate lead and it could open the possibility that he has the most pledged delegates going into the convention but not a majority. Why shouldn’t the candidate with the most pledged delegates going into the convention be the nominee?”

Biden:“For the same reason he[Sanders] didn’t think when Hillary[Clinton] had the most pledged delegates that she should be the nominee. The process is laid out….He wanted to make sure that the one with the most delegates didn’t become the automatic nominee when he was running against Hillary and all of a sudden he’s had an epiphany……”

The inconsistency Biden is pointing out is a very important one but you rarely hear it from the mainstream political punditry class. This is an especially important issue this year because there is a very good chance Democrats are headed for a contested convention. This idea usually put out there by Sanders’ surrogates in the media, that he must get the nomination if he is leading in delegates by the time the convention comes around or else there would be a “revolt”, needs some serious push back and Yours Truly was very happy to hear Joe Biden do exactly that.

Asked what argument he would use to convince super delegates to pick him over Sanders, Biden made yet another powerful argument that you rarely hear from the paid political punditry class and that is, Democrats also need to win down-ballot, and he’s the candidate best suited for delivering that outcome. Specifically, Biden said, “I can win the United States Senate as the candidate on top of the ticket. I can win the House and increase the number in the House. I can go into every state in the nation, I can go into purple states and we can win. I can win in places that I don’t think Bernie can win in a general election. In 2018…I went into 24 states, purple states for over 65 candidates they wanted me in and we won. They were asking me to come in. I don’t know if they asked Bernie, they may have, I doubt it, because they know I can be value added to their campaigns. I can pick up independents, I can pick up liberals, as well as moderate Democrats.”

Bottom line folks, this may sound rude/mean and will probably be interpreted as such by Bernie Sanders’ fans, but it is a fact that during the 2018 midterms, a lot of Democrats in purple states came to Biden and not Sanders for help with their campaigns, as Biden correctly pointed out. Democrats won big as a result. The question the paid political punditry class should be posing to Bernie Sanders’ surrogates is why Dem candidates, needing to win in purple states in 2018, never asked him for campaign help like they did Biden? The bigger question however should be why Bernie Sanders should be handed the nomination simply because he is leading in delegates by convention time, when he was totally opposed to that idea in 2016 when he was trailing Hillary Clinton? These are serious questions that Democrats need to address as the nomination contest heats up.

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You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com