Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) on Monday faulted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) for his supporters' attacks against a Nevada culinary workers union, saying they were building "a foundation of hate."
"I've said before that we are all responsible for what our supporters do," Warren said in an interview with MSNBC's Ali Vitali. "And I think Bernie has a lot of questions to answer here. And I am particularly worried about what happened in the attacks on members of the culinary union, particularly on the women in leadership."
Warren said the attacks would only further divide the Democratic Party, making it more difficult for any candidate to defeat President Donald Trump. "We do not build on a foundation of hate," she said.
Nevada Culinary Union 226 criticized Sanders's Medicare for All proposal in a flyer distributed last Tuesday. According to a statement released Wednesday, the union has since been the subject of "vicious" attacks in tweets, emails, and phone calls.
Sanders disavowed the attacks in an interview Thursday, saying he was unsure whether they were even from his supporters and that the internet was a "strange world."
Warren previously accused Sanders of saying in a private meeting in 2018 that a woman couldn't win the presidency. Sanders denied the allegation at a debate before the Iowa caucus, prompting Warren to accuse him afterward of calling her "a liar on national TV." Sanders went on to finish second in Iowa and first in New Hampshire, with Warren lagging behind the frontrunners.
Warren's call for candidates to take responsibility for their supporters comes six months after a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, which was carried out by a man who made pro-Warren posts on social media. Warren said it was a "distraction" to discuss the shooter's public support for her. She condemned the massacre while saying Trump was responsible for racist violence in El Paso because there was a "direct line between the president’s rhetoric and the stated motivations of the El Paso shooter."
Warren and Sanders will join the rest of the Democratic field for a debate Wednesday night in Nevada.