Monday, February 3, 2020
"We even have people up on the snowbank!" Sanders exclaimed, gesturing toward a small group of sign-wielding hipsters assembled atop a dirty pile of snow. "Whoa!"
On his final day in Iowa before Monday's Democratic presidential caucuses, Sanders made his way from Cedar Rapids to Des Moines, dropping by field offices to thank his loyal foot soldiers and encourage them to keep at it.
"The message is that we cannot simply complain about the status quo," he told the crowd in Cedar Rapids. It was not the time, he said, to complain about President Donald Trump or low wages or the high cost of prescription drugs. "Now is the time to end the complaining," he said. "Now is the time for action. Action is tomorrow night."
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Sunday, February 2, 2020
Four years later, Sanders’ closing argument hasn’t changed a lick: “On Monday night in Iowa … if there is a low voter turnout, let me be very frank, we’re gonna lose. But if there is a high voter turnout, we’re gonna win.”
That latest assessment came Saturday night as Sanders addressed some 3,000 supporters at a Cedar Rapids arena, flanked by members of the band Vampire Weekend. According to his campaign, it was the largest rally any Democrat has held in Iowa this election season.
The candidate, however, had another record in mind. “Tonight, I am here to ask you to make certain that, on Monday night, we have the highest voter turnout for an Iowa caucus in the history of this state,” he said.
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Saturday, February 1, 2020
Thousands of Sanders supporters still gathered in the city of Clive to hear indie crooner Justin Vernon — the frontman of Bon Iver — and a cast of campaign surrogates make the case for the senator from Vermont. Sanders himself phoned in to the event, his disembodied voice urging audience members to help "create the highest voter turnout in the history of the Iowa caucuses."
"On Monday night, the entire country and, in fact, the entire world will be looking at the great state of Iowa," Sanders said. "And my humble request of you is to do everything that you can to make sure that our friends and our neighbors come out to vote."
Though Sanders framed his campaign as one of unity, two key allies who spoke at the event — Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and filmmaker Michael Moore — derided his political foes, past and present.
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Friday, January 31, 2020
Vermont's two U.S. Senators voted in favor of a motion that would allow witnesses to testify. But the effort fell short, 51-49, despite two Republicans crossing the aisle to vote in favor — all but confirming the country’s third-ever impeachment trial will soon reach its finale.
Minutes after the vote, Leahy told Seven Days the decision means that, for the first time in American history, an impeachment trial may conclude without any witness testimony.
"It just boggles the mind," he said in a phone interview.
Tags: Senate , Impeachment trial , Sanders , Leahy , Trump , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
But events — some within his campaign's control and some outside of it — have conspired to change the conversation.
First, there was a dustup over a private conversation between Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a longtime friend and current opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination. Then, there was an overreach by Sanders' campaign, when it took out of context a 2018 video of Biden discussing his views on Social Security.
Then, on Monday, Sanders found himself apologizing to Biden for an op-ed penned by Vermont native, Fordham Law School professor and Sanders surrogate Zephyr Teachout, in which she wrote that the former VP had "a big corruption problem" because he's gone to bat for major donors. "It is absolutely not my view that Joe is corrupt in any way," Sanders told CBS News. "And I'm sorry that that op-ed appeared."
Finally, on Tuesday, the senator from Vermont found himself on the receiving end of another round of fire from 2016 rival Hillary Clinton. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Clinton attacked Sanders' record in a documentary set to be released by Hulu.
Tags: Bernie Sanders , Election , Election 2020 , Elizabeth Warren , Hillary Clinton , Joe Biden , Primary 2020 , Senator , Web Only , Image
Monday, January 20, 2020
As the Senate prepared to vote on the rules of the trial, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) of bending to the wishes of the White House.
“He’s treating the Senate as though it is a branch of the executive, which of course it’s not,” Leahy told Seven Days. “I think no matter what comes of this, if there’s not some significant changes in the procedure, history books are always going to [say] the whole thing was a farce.”
Vermont’s two U.S. senators are likely to play notable, if different, roles in the trial, which is expected to begin in earnest on Wednesday.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, will have to divide his time between the Senate proceedings and the campaign trail. He held events in New Hampshire over the weekend and was scheduled to appear in South Carolina and Iowa on Monday — then in Iowa again on Wednesday night.
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Thursday, January 16, 2020
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) backed the deal, calling it a reasonable compromise that would boost Vermont's export economy and dairy industry. But Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) opposed it, arguing that it failed to address climate change and would not stanch the flow of American jobs to Mexico. The third member of Vermont's congressional delegation, Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), voted for the deal when it passed the House last month.
The trade deal, which now goes to the president for his signature, was years in the making. First negotiated by the Trump administration, it was significantly revised last year in order to win support from the Democratic House. The pact won the support of many labor unions, including the AFL-CIO, but it was panned by environmental groups.
Tags: Senator , Patrick Leahy , Bernie Sanders , Peter Welch , Donald Trump , USMCA , NAFTA , Web Only , Image
When Kunin, Vermont's first — and, to this day, only — female governor, ran for reelection in 1986, Burlington mayor Bernie Sanders told voters that he would do more for women if they replaced her with him.
"He claimed to be a better feminist than I was," Kunin said this week in an interview with Seven Days. "It shocked me at the time."
Sanders, now a U.S. senator seeking the presidency, has faced heightened scrutiny over his views on women in politics since CNN reported Monday that he'd declared in a private meeting that a woman could not win the White House in 2020. The other participant in the December 2018 meeting, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), confirmed the report.
"Among the topics that came up was what would happen if Democrats nominated a female candidate," said Warren, who is also running for president. "I thought a woman could win; he disagreed."
Sanders has denied the story. "Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't say it," Sanders responded when asked about the alleged remark at a Democratic debate Tuesday in Des Moines, Iowa. "Anybody knows me knows that it's incomprehensible that I would think that a woman cannot be president of the United States."
Kunin, whose path to power in the 1980s coincided and sometimes conflicted with Sanders', doesn't believe her former rival. "As far as the conversation between he and Elizabeth Warren, I tend to believe her, since she's been such a straight arrow on everything else," Kunin said.
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Tuesday, January 7, 2020
“Let me be frank: I don’t believe what the president has said about the plan,” Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said at a press conference Tuesday before boarding a plane to Washington, D.C., where Congress reconvenes this week. “I want to have public hearings to get to the bottom of this.”
Welch, a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, echoed statements by its chair, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who on Monday cast doubt on the unspecified intelligence cited by the Trump administration that Qassim Suleimani, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, was plotting “imminent” attacks against the U.S.
Unlike Schiff, Welch has yet to review any intelligence used to justify the drone strike that killed Suleimani and six others at Baghdad International Airport on January 2. He said he plans to review the classified material this week.
Welch nonetheless characterized the strike as reckless and impulsive and said it has already led to insecurity abroad. Repeating a recent Schiff quote in the Washington Post almost verbatim, Welch said Trump “was table-hopping down in Mar-a-Lago when he made this decision.”
“Amateur hour is in charge at the White House,” he said.
In casting doubt Tuesday on the administration's assertion that Suleimani was planning an imminent attack, Welch referred to Iraqi and Iranian officials’ recent statements that Suleimani had traveled to Baghdad for diplomatic discussions.
Earlier Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ridiculed that notion, rhetorically asking reporters in Washington if there was “any history that would indicate it was remotely possible that this kind gentleman, this diplomat of great order, Qassim Suleimani, had traveled to Baghdad for the idea of conducting a peace mission?" CNN reported.
Welch called Pompeo’s assertion that the strike made Americans safer “absurd.”
He pledged to “be a voice for deescalation” in Congress.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) plans to introduce a resolution under the War Powers Act this week to curtail the president’s military actions against Iran. Welch said he will support it, as well as related legislation introduced in both chambers last Friday by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would bar the use of funds for military force against Iran without congressional authorization. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has signed on to the Senate legislation.
“After authorizing a disastrous, $738 billion military budget that placed no restrictions on this president from starting an unauthorized war with Iran, Congress now has an opportunity to change course,” Sanders and Khanna said in a joint statement.
“We must invest in the needs of the American people, not spend trillions more on endless wars,” they said.
Tags: senator , Qassim Suleimani , Peter Welch , Bernie Sanders , Patrick Leahy , Iran , Trump , Web Only , Image
Friday, January 3, 2020
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) criticized President Donald Trump late Thursday for ordering an airstrike in Iraq that killed Qassim Suleimani, the powerful leader of Iran's Quds Force.
The Pentagon took responsibility for the drone strike, which also reportedly killed several leaders of Iraqi militia groups aligned with Iran. State media in Iran confirmed the death of Suleimani, who was seen as a pivotal military and political leader.
In a written statement issued hours after news of the strike broke, Sanders referred to the attack at Baghdad International Airport as an “assassination.” The president’s “dangerous escalation brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars,” he said, adding, "Trump promised to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one."
The senator and presidential candidate compared the move to the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq, which he opposed at the time. "I feared it would lead to greater destabilization of the country and the region," he said in the statement. "Today, 17 years later, that fear has unfortunately turned out to be true."
During a campaign event Friday in Iowa, Sanders elaborated on his response — and again compared it to the start of the Iraq War.
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