A spokeswoman for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that Democratic presidential candidates in the 2020 race — namely frontrunner and former vice president Joe Biden — will have to answer for their records.
“At the end of the day, all of these candidates have to justify their records,” Briahna Joy Gray, a national press secretary for Sanders’s campaign, told Hill.TV on Monday.
“That’s why it’s so remarkable to have someone like Bernie Sanders who does have a long, long record … just as long as Joe Biden,” she added.
Gray added that, unlike Biden, Sanders’s long record, particularly on foreign policy has been viewed as a strength rather than a vulnerability.
“He’s considered to be one of the best candidates — I think the best candidate — on foreign policy because he’s shown that kind of impressive judgment again and again when it comes to perhaps the greatest responsibility of the chief executive.”
Biden’s backing for the Iraq War has made him a ripe target for attacks from his fellow 2020 rivals.
Sanders, who places second behind Biden in most national polling, told the Los Angeles Times editorial board last week that the former vice president’s record in the Senate would make him an easy target for President Trump in a general election.
“If you’re a Donald Trump and you got Biden having voted for the war in Iraq, Biden having voted for these terrible, in my view, trade agreements, Biden having voted for the bankruptcy bill. Trump will eat his lunch,” Sanders said in the interview.
Biden later hit back, saying “Tell him come and I’ll give him some dessert at the White House.”
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Sunday also hit Biden over his backing of the Iraq War.
Buttigieg called Biden’s vote to authorize the war the “worst foreign policy decision” of his lifetime.
—Tess Bonn
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