ThinkProgress released a video on Thursday attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) for his recent admission that he was a "millionaire."
Sanders, who is running for president again, acknowledged earlier this week in an interview with the New York Times that he was a millionaire and said, "If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too."
ThinkProgress, a liberal news site and editorially independent project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, released a video on their Youtube page called, "Bernie's millionaire problem." The video said that Sanders has been railing against "millionaires and billionaires" for several years and then showed multiple clips of Sanders referencing them.
The video referenced how Sanders "slightly tweaked" his rhetoric following his 2016 presidential run when his book royalties made him a millionaire. ThinkProgress proceeded to show a line graph of Sanders's income based on his financial disclosure forms and how he stopped attacking millionaires after his book, Our Revolution, was released in November 2016, making him a millionaire. Instead of attacking millionaires and billionaires, the video shows him only going after billionaires and multi-millionaires in one case.
Waleed Shahid, the spokesperson of Justice Democrats and a former Sanders staffer, slammed the video as "embarrassing," adding that he was "very confused."
I am very confused by this @thinkprogress attack video about Bernie Sanders. This is embarrassing.https://t.co/MeRCZs0yeC
— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) April 11, 2019
David Sirota, Sanders's campaign speech writer and "Twitter attack dog," quote-tweeted an Associated Press reporter questioning why the video was made.
"Here's an Associated Press reporter asking why @AmProg's @ThinkProgress is now attacking @BernieSanders for criticizing billionaires. It's a good question!" Sirota tweeted.
https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1116448516459483136
The attack on Sanders follows a repeated call by Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden not to attack fellow Democrats because it is "doing Trump’s bidding." While Sanders is an independent senator, he caucuses with the Democrats and is running as a Democrat for president.