Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:13 pm
Former Vice President Joe Biden refused to play the media’s stop Bernie game, but he did say that the Russians aren’t trying to help him win the nomination.
Transcript via Face The Nation:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Bernie Sanders. Can you stop him, in terms of the momentum he has? The Bloomberg campaign, as you know, is out saying that for moderates like yourselves, he’s going to basically end up with an insurmountable delegate lead because of his early success.
BIDEN: I told you, I’m not going to play this game with you. I don’t know. It’s not about who I stop. It’s why I’m running, why I’m telling the people that I should be the next president and why I’m the best guy to beat Trump. All those other polls you all cite also show I’m the most person- I’m the- the person most likely to be Trump. I’m the person that, in fact, in- in those polls in addition to that, I’m the only one, in terms of the Russians and all these stuff you’ve all been reporting. The Russians don’t want me to be the nominee. They spent a lot of money on bots on Facebook and they’ve been taken down saying Biden is a bad guy. They don’t want Biden running. They’re not- no one’s helping me to try to get the nomination. They have good reason.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Who informed you of that? Was it Facebook or have U.S. intelligence officials told you about some kind of meddling with the campaign?
BIDEN: I have not spoken to the intelligence community, but I think the intelligence community should inform the rest of us who are running what they told Senator Sanders.
Video:
Can Biden halt @BernieSanders' surge? "I don't know,” he tells @margbrennan. “It's not about who I stop. It's why I'm running, why I'm telling the people that I should be the next president and why I'm the best guy to beat Trump.” WATCH –> pic.twitter.com/TwsxfWyh0v
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) February 23, 2020
Biden’s right on both counts. The primary isn’t about “stopping Sanders,” which is a media and Sanders campaign narrative. Biden has spent much of his campaign talking about the past instead of explaining why people should vote for him in 2020.
The former vice president was also correct. Bernie Sanders is the candidate who the Russians want to see win the Democratic nomination. It doesn’t matter if Sen. Sanders doesn’t want their help. They are helping him out of the belief that helping Sanders helps Trump.
Biden may have been one of the first candidates to take a Russia jab at Bernie Sanders, but with another debate coming up this week, he won’t be the last.
For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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