After being pushed by The Des Moines Register’s Kathie Obradovich during Saturday’s Democratic debate about his flip-flopping on Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal, socialist Bernie Sanders denied the idea that he had backtracked from his “damn e-mails” comment in the October 13 debate.
Instead, Sanders attacked the notion as “media stuff” and emphasized that he’s “still sick and tired of Hillary Clinton's e-mails.”
Sanders curiously complained that he “didn’t know I had so much power” to drive news stories on “the front pages every day” of newspapers and news sites after both his original comments and subsequent ones to The Wall Street Journal that he did not object to the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s private server and wanted to see it run its course.
Lecturing the media for what they should cover, Sanders used the occasions to ramble off a slew of liberal talking points that he believes are “the major issues facing America” (with the conduct of a former First Lady and secretary of state not being one of them):
What I would like for the media now is for us to be talking about why the middle class is disappearing, why we have more people in jail than any other country, why we have massive levels of income and wealth inequality, and we're the only major country on Earth without paid family and medical leave. We've gotten off the Hillary's e-mails, good. Let's go to the major issues facing America.
The relevant portion of the transcript from CBS’s Democratic Presidential Debate on November 14 can be found below.
CBS’s Democratic Presidential Debate
November 14, 2015
10:24 p.m. EasternKATHIE OBRADOVICH: Senator Sanders, you famously said in the last debate that you were sick and tired of hearing about your “damn e-mails,” but then you told The Wall Street Journal that the questions about whether or not Secretary Clinton's e-mails compromised classified information were valid questions. So, which is it? Is it an issue or is it not?
INDEPENDENT SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: That's just media stuff. I was sick and tired of Hillary Clinton's e-mail. I am still sick and tired of Hillary Clinton's e-mails and the issue is, the problem is, the front pages every day were dealing with it. I didn't know I had so much power, but after I said that, we're not hearing so much about Hillary Clinton's e-mails. What I would like for the media now is for us to be talking about why the middle class is disappearing, why we have more people in jail than any other country, why we have massive levels of income and wealth inequality, and we're the only major country on Earth without paid family and medical leave. We've gotten off the Hillary's e-mails, good. Let's go to the major issues facing America.
