DES MOINES, IOWA/CONCORD, N.H. (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders struggled to move past a weeklong controversy over whether he told U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren in a 2018 private meeting that a woman could not beat Republican President Donald Trump as the White House rivals campaigned over the weekend in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
In an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio on Sunday, Sanders said that the media had “blown this thing up” and that he has “always believed and believe today that a woman can be elected president.”
“I think everybody has their own sets of problems,” he added when asked whether gender is an obstacle for female candidates, citing being 78 years old as his own problem to overcome.
Sanders’ response prompted a fresh round online backlash as the two senators and long-time liberal allies campaigned just two weeks before the first nominating contests begin, and as voters in the in Iowa and New Hampshire largely urged them to move on from the matter.
Warren, when asked by reporters on Sunday if being a woman is a “problem,” said she had “no further comment on this.”
“I have been friends with Bernie for a long time, we work together on many, many issues, and I’ve said all I’m going to say on this,” Warren said.
The two senators had been at odds in recent days after Warren said Sanders told her during the meeting that a woman could not win the presidency in November 2020, which Sanders has denied.
The spat bubbled to the fore during last week’s presidential debate in Iowa, when a CNN microphone caught Warren telling Sanders he made her out to be a liar on national television.
The disintegration of the non-aggression pact between the two friends – and the resulting online backlash from fervent supporters in both camps – caused hand-wringing among progressive groups, which urged backers of the two candidates to reserve their fire for centrist rivals.
Sanders is leading Warren in most national opinion polls but both trail behind former Vice President Joe Biden, a moderate.
