Tonight, Bernie Sanders attempted to praise President Obama for the issues he’s tackled over the past seven years, saying he and Vice President Biden helped get us out of an economic recession.
But as Sanders said himself, he has criticized the President often. He has dismissed President Obama’s legacy and even encouraged a primary challenge against President Obama in 2012. Sanders is banking on voters having short-term memory, but we’re here to remind them of the facts:
Bernie Sanders said a progressive Democratic opponent to President Obama’s reelection “would enliven the debate,” and said a primary challenge was “not a bad idea.” “I’m not a Democrat. I’m an Independent. But if a progressive Democrat wants to run, I think it would enliven the debate, raise some issues and people have a right to do that. I’ve been asked whether I am going to do that. I’m not. I don’t know who is, but in a democracy, it’s not a bad idea to have different voices out there.” [WNYC, 3/16/11]
Bernie Sanders said a primary opponent to President Obama “would do this country a good deal of service.” “I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing.” [Think Progress, 7/22/11]
Bernie Sanders: “I think one of the reasons the President has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him.” [Thom Hartmann Radio Program, 7/22/11]
In a 2011 interview, Sanders initially refused to say whether he supported President Obama’s reelection. “Sanders, the independent from Vermont who is revered on the left for his staunchly liberal views, initially refused to say in an interview whether he would back the president in 2012. Instead, he turned serious and said he hoped that ‘the president never forgets who elected him to the White House. It was not Wall Street, although they contributed. It was not the big money interests. It was working families, lower-income people and the middle class.’ He urged Obama to not cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, demand higher taxes from the rich and ‘stop reaching negotiated agreements with Republicans that are extremely weak and disadvantageous to ordinary people.’” [Politico, 11/13/11]
Obama aide said Sanders was promoting the idea of a primary challenge that would have hurt his reelection chances. “Ben LaBolt, who was the Obama campaign’s press secretary in 2012, told MSNBC he remembered things differently. ‘Most Democrats — from President Clinton to Governor O’Malley — were all in to support President Obama’s tough reelection campaign,’ he said. ‘Others were promoting the idea of a primary challenge, which would have really handcuffed our ability to fire up the base in the run-up to the general election. Senator Sanders fell into the latter camp.’” [MSNBC, 11/10/15]