Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager says Elizabeth Warren ‘came to raise a concern’ during awkward handshake moment

Democratic debate viewers were left wondering about an exchange between Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders after cameras caught an abandoned handshake and heated conversation.

Sanders’ campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, told The Washington Post in an interview that Warren “came to raise a concern, and he said let’s talk about that later.” He declined to discuss it further with the Post, and both campaigns didn’t respond to questions from USA TODAY about the moment.

Tensions between Sanders and Warren in the last few days arose out of reports that Sanders told Warren in a December 2018 conversation he disagreed with her that a woman could win the White House, which Sanders has denied.

Asked about it during Tuesday’s debate, Sanders said that it was an “incomprehensible” claim.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t say it. And I don’t want to waste a whole lot of time on this, because this is what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want,” Sanders said. “Anybody knows me knows that it’s incomprehensible that I would think that a woman cannot be president of the United States.”

But debate moderator Abby Philip then turned the question to Warren: What did you think when Bernie Sanders told you that a woman could not be president?

“I disagreed,” Warren said, adding that Sanders is “my friend.”

Handshake: REJECTED pic.twitter.com/LUA49Z0JCc

The debate was a day after Warren issued a statement acknowledging that Sanders “disagreed” that a woman could beat President Donald Trump in the election in a meeting they had to discuss the 2020 election.

After the debate, cameras were still rolling as candidates shook hands and spoke to one another on stage, without audio. Sanders held out his hand to Warren as she approached, but she did not shake it. The two instead engaged in what looked like a heated discussion, with Sanders pointing toward Warren and back at himself again before turning away.

Midway through their discussion, businessman Tom Steyer approached the two and looked on at their conversation. Steyer told CNN after the debate that he hadn’t heard what was being discussed, however.

“I was just going up to say ‘good night Sen. Sanders’ and I felt like, OK, there’s something going on here. Good night, I’m out of here,” he said.

“I really wasn’t listening. They were talking about getting together or something,” Steyer added. “I really didn’t listen. I really — it was one of those awkward moments where I felt like, you know, I need to move on as fast as possible.”

Warren did shake hands with former Vice President Joe Biden before the interaction with Sanders, and can be seen also shaking former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s hand afterward.

The New York Times confirmed Shakir’s statement, with multiple sources with knowledge of the post-debate moment saying that Sanders asked to discuss her concern at a different time. The Times reports that Warren told Sanders she was concerned he mischaracterized their 2018 conversation.

Source: Read Full Article