Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) took shots at Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) after she spoke to a group of big donors and claimed Sanders’ Medicare for All plan makes her uncomfortable.
Harris spoke at a fundraiser in the East Hampton home of movie executive Jamie Patricof and wife Kelly Sunday and told donors that Sanders’ Medicare for All plan makes her uncomfortable.
“I think almost every member of the United States Senate who’s running for president, and many others, have signed on to a variety of plans in the Senate. And I have done the same,” Harris said.
“I support Medicare for All. But as you may have noticed, over the course of the many months, I’ve not been comfortable with Bernie’s plan, the Medicare-for-All plan,” she added, despite the fact that she co-sponsored Sanders’ plan in 2017 and described it as “ethically right.”
“This is about understanding, again, that health care should be a right, not a privilege. And it’s also about being smart,” Harris said at the time.
“So it’s not only about what is morally and ethically right,” she added. “It also makes sense from a fiscal standpoint, or if you want to talk about it as a return on investment for taxpayers.”
Sanders took direct aim at Harris’s remarks in a tweet Monday afternoon:
I don't go to the Hamptons to raise money from billionaires. If I ever visited there, I would tell them the same thing I have said for the last 30 years: We must pass a Medicare for All system to guarantee affordable health care for all, not just for those who can afford it.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 19, 2019
Harris campaign spokesman Ian Sams responded to Sanders’ criticism in a sarcastic tweet Monday evening. “Oh, spare me,” Sams wrote, listing the lavish fundraising events Sanders has attended in the past:
Oh, spare me.
NBC reported Sanders was "a regular presence at luxurious fundraising retreats," including in Martha's Vineyard. No attendees "said they heard him chastise Wall Street banks or pharmaceutical companies to the faces of the lobbyists representing those interests." https://t.co/75OH10U7Cb
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) August 19, 2019
Interestingly, @WSJ recently reported that, at a NYC fundraiser in May, @KamalaHarris "told the audience of about 80 people that as president she would continue to be 'tough on banks,' according to attendees."
Team Sanders should stop this silly stuff.https://t.co/WSdlMN4NaO
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) August 19, 2019
Link to NBC report on Sanders' attendance at tony Martha's Vineyard and Palm Beach fundraisers – https://t.co/ZjifPkY4rn
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) August 19, 2019
Harris has found herself in a tough spot over the last month. She has drastically slipped in the polls due, in part, to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-HI) takedown of Harris’s prosecutorial record during the last debate and Harris’s inability to provide consistent answers on her plans to overhaul the healthcare system.
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