Sanders and Warren haven’t spoken since debate clash on sexism allegation

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) haven’t spoken since a heated exchange on the debate stage in Iowa on Tuesday, when Warren accused her rival of calling her a liar on national television. 

Sanders told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday that the two leading progressive rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination haven’t made any attempt to bury the hatchet since Tuesday and declined to discuss the matter any further.

Asked if he and Warren have spoken since the debate, Sanders replied tersely: “No, we haven’t spoken.”

Warren appeared furious after the debate when she confronted Sanders about denying her claim that he told her in a 2018 meeting that a woman couldn’t beat Trump in November’s general election.

CNN released audio of the exchange Wednesday night, putting to an end 24 hours of speculation about a moment that was caught on camera but not initially on a microphone.

“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” Warren said, seemingly catching Sanders off guard.

“What?” he replied.

“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” she repeated.

Sanders appeared to try to defuse the situation by offering to talk about it later.

“You know, let’s not do it right now. If you want to have that discussion, we’ll have that discussion,” he said, before telling Warren she had also called him a liar.

But the senator did not feel like talking about it at the start of Trump’s impeachment trial.

“Look, today I want to focus on this very solemn issue,” he said, referring to the trial. “Today is a day we focus on an issue of enormous consequence. It’s not a political day, it’s a day of solemnity. It’s a day of ultimate solemnity.”

Sanders on Tuesday adamantly denied that he ever told Warren that a woman could not beat Trump in 2020.

“Anybody that knows me knows that it’s incomprehensible that I would think that a woman could not be president of the United States,” he said.