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Warren Hits Sanders for 'Ugly, Dangerous' Behavior by His Supporters

March 6, 2020

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) is failing to address online harassment perpetrated by his supporters, adding that candidates are responsible for the behavior of their supporters. 

"I think there's a real problem with this online bullying and sort of organized nastiness, and I'm not just talking about who said mean things," Warren said during a Thursday interview with MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow. "I'm talking about some really ugly stuff that went on."

Warren mentioned harassment experienced by members of Nevada's Culinary Workers Union Local 226 after the union criticized Sanders's Medicare for All proposal.

"We are responsible for the people who claim to be our supporters and do really threatening, ugly, dangerous things to other candidates," Warren said.

Warren added that Sanders’s supporters are extreme for threatening individuals and sharing their private information.

"It's a particular problem with Sanders's supporters?" Maddow asked.

"It is. It just is. It's just a factual question, and it is," Warren responded.

She said she spoke with the Vermont senator about the problem and said he needs to find a solution.

"The point is, you don't have a creative solution, sit down and try a creative solution," Warren said. "And if the first one doesn't work, move it aside and let's try the second, and if that one doesn't work, move it aside and let's try a third. But throwing up our hands and saying, no, we can't do this, that cannot be the right answer."

She called for "an understanding that nobody tries to put somebody's family at risk or somebody personally at risk because they disagree with you on the politics of it, because they see the policy different, because they don't support your candidate and they support some other candidate."

Warren ended her presidential campaign after a poor performance on Super Tuesday, in which she came in third in her home state of Massachusetts.