After Tuesday night’s Democratic debate got fiery, Sen. Elizabeth Warren refused to shake Sen. Bernie Sanders’ hand.
As the six candidates on the stage milled about and shook hands at the conclusion of the two-hour debate, Warren approached Sanders. He held out his hand, but she didn’t shake it. Instead, she appeared to say something firmly.
“What?” Sanders can be seen saying. Then, apparently taken aback, he began explaining, spreading his hands before pointing at Warren as he addressed whatever matter Warren had brought up. Sanders then pointed to himself, back to her, and broke off the conversation, walking away.
Fellow candidate Tom Steyer was nearby as the two talked, and he was asked later on CNN what the two talked about.
“I was just going up to say good night. And I felt like OK, there’s something going on. Good night! I’m out of here! I really wasn’t listening,” Steyer said.
“How can you not hear Bernie Sanders?” host Anderson Cooper asked.
“I really didn’t listen,” Steyer said. “It was one of those awkward moments where I felt like, you know, I need to move on as fast as possible. You could see it was an awkward moment. My goal was simply to say good night to two people I respect. The last thing I wanted to do was get in between the two of them and try and listen in. That was not my goal and I didn’t do it.”
The two senators, among the frontrunners for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, clashed repeatedly in Tuesday night’s debate.
Warren had charged that in a private 2018 meeting at her Washington D.C. apartment, Sanders told her a woman couldn’t beat President Trump. The subject came up early in the debate, putting Sanders on the defensive.
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t say that. And I don’t want to waste a lot of time on this because this is what Donald Trump, maybe some of the media would want. Anybody who knows me knows it is incomprehensible that I would think that a woman could not be president of the United States,” the Vermont democratic socialist said.
“Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by three million votes. How could anybody in a million years think a woman couldn’t become president of the United States?” said Sanders. “And let me be very clear, if any of the women on this stage, or any of the men on this stage, win the nomination — I hope that’s not the case, I hope it’s me — but if they do, I will do everything in my power to ensure they are elected in order to defeat the most dangerous president in the history of our country.”
CNN’s Abby Phillips, one of the debate moderators, asked: “Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you’re saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election?”
“That is correct,” he said.
But Phillips then said to the Massachusetts Democrat: “Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?” That drew laughter from the crowd.
“I disagreed,” Warren replied. “Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie. But, look, this question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised and it’s time for us to attack it head-on.”
Warren then attacked the men on the stage — Sanders, Steyer, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg — while praising her and Amy Klobuchar’s record as candidates.
“The best way to talk about who can win is by looking at people’s winning record. So, can a woman beat Donald Trump? Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women. Amy and me,” she said.
“So true,” Klobuchar said.
Warren continued: “And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican anytime in the past 30 years is me. And here’s what I know. The real danger that we face as Democrats is picking a candidate who can’t pull our party together or someone who takes for granted big parts of the democratic constituency. We need a candidate who will excite all parts of the Democratic Party, bring everyone in, and give everyone a Democrat to believe in. That’s my plan and that is why I’m going to win,” she said.