Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, says he was busy running for president in 2016 and unaware of allegations of sexual harassment, demeaning treatment, and pay disparity inside his campaign organization.
“I was a little bit busy running around the country, trying to make the case” to become president, Sanders told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday night.
Cooper initially asked if the former presidential candidate who is expected to run again if he had been aware of the allegations. Those allegations were highlighted in a New York Times report Wednesday.
“I’m very proud of the campaign we ran in 2016,” was Sanders’ initial response to the CNN host. “We started at four percent at the polls, we ended up winning 22 states, 13 million votes,” Sanders said.
“I think we changed the nature of political discourse in this country, raising issues that are now kind of mainstream which were then considered extreme and fringe.”
“When our campaign grew, I think we started with three or four paid employees, and over a period of a few months, as the campaign exploded, we went up to 1200 employees and I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we did everything right in terms of human resources,” Senator Sanders admitted.
“I certainly apologize to any woman who felt that she was not treated appropriately and of course, if I run we will do better next time.”
In one example, the Times reports that “a Latino outreach strategist…complained to her supervisor that she had been harassed by a campaign surrogate whom she drove to events ahead of the Democratic primary in Nevada.”
“When she reported the incident to Bill Velazquez, a manager on the Latino outreach team, he told her, ‘I bet you would have liked it if he were younger,’ according to her account and another woman who witnessed the exchange,” The Times reports. “Then he laughed.”
Here’s Sen. Sanders on “AC360” Wednesday night:
Some on social media weighed in on the Times’ report, and some on Sanders’ response.
Former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien, now the chairwoman of Starfish Media Group and an anchor for Heart Television, weighed in:
Mother Jones’ Editor-in-Chief:
Political analyst and activist: