Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I., Vt.) campaign manager Faiz Shakir on Thursday said Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg are kowtowing to rich donors while the Sanders campaign is funded entirely by small donations.
"If you have Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden telling you that they need to go kowtow at the altar of the rich to fundraise for the general election, they are wrong," Shakir told CNN. "We are upending those notions. You can fund this totally in a grassroots way."
Shakir added that Biden and Buttigieg are ultimately selling political influence to those donors.
"The problem with it, to Joe Biden to Pete Buttigieg to anybody else to wants to go kowtow at the altar of the rich, they are telling you that those people who have inordinate power influence over our economy right now, over our political system right now will continue to have that influence when they're in the White House," Shakir said.
The Sanders campaign announced on Thursday it raised $34.5 million this past quarter, bringing the total amount of money he raised since he announced his candidacy to $96 million. Sanders has made grassroots fundraising a centerpiece of his campaign while criticizing candidates like Buttigieg and Biden for soliciting donations from wealthy individuals. Buttigieg has defended those donations by saying Democrats have to fight President Donald Trump with everything they can.