Subject: Re: Flagging story
From: "Garcia, Walter" <[email-masked]>
To: "Paustenbach, Mark" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Miranda, Luis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 17:23:59 -0700

Also, brutal WaPo editorial on Sanders:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/after-tensions-explode-in-nevada-its-time-for-sanders-to-be-honest-with-his-supporters/2016/05/18/f17c2468-1d2d-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html?postshare=9331463616264798&tid=ss_tw

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On May 18, 2016, at 7:51 PM, Paustenbach, Mark <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

Full text here. This story does not make Bernie look good.

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Bernie Sanders’s Defiance Strains Ties With Top Democrats
·
By JEREMY W. PETERS and ALAN RAPPEPORT
MAY 18, 2016
WASHINGTON — Senator Bernie Sanders<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/bernie-sanders-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per>’s relationship with the leadership of the Democratic Party and his colleagues on Capitol Hill was strained further on Wednesday as he and his campaign remained defiant over the way they say his success is being belittled and undermined by people in the party who are loyal toHillary Clinton<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/hillary-clinton-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per>.
Whatever tolerance Democrats have for Mr. Sanders’s continuing his increasingly long-shot presidential bid was quickly evaporating, with some of his closest allies in the party suggesting his efforts to rein in his most unruly supporters was half-hearted.
“Bernie and I have known each other for a long time,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader and one of Mr. Sanders’ best friends in the Senate. “And I believe he is better than this.”
Vice President Joe Biden also weighed in, saying that while Mr. Sanders is “a good guy,” he needed “to be more aggressive in speaking out.”
The dispute centered around the Democratic state convention in Nevada over the weekend in which Mr. Sanders was denied the delegates he thought he had earned, a development that infuriated his supporters there and led some to throw chairs and later threaten the state party chairwoman.
The Democratic Party of Nevada pushed back against the Sanders campaign’s criticism that the process wrongly deprived him of delegates, saying that “simple math” dictated the outcome and that Mr. Sanders was simply outnumbered. “Bernie Sanders’s campaign was not organized,” the party said in a statement, noting that nearly 500 of his seats at the convention were vacant because his supporters had failed to show up.
National party leaders, such as the Democratic National Committee<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/democratic_national_committee/index.html?inline=nyt-org> chairwoman,Debbie Wasserman Schultz<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/debbie_wasserman_schultz/index.html>, have also criticized how Mr. Sanders has handled the unrest in Nevada, adding to the frustration within his campaign.
Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager took to cable news on Wednesday to assail the party and Ms. Schultz.
“The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, it is clear almost from the get-go she has been working against Bernie Sanders — there’s no doubt about it, for personal reasons,” Jeff Weaver, Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager, said of Ms. Wasserman Schultz on MSNBC. “She has been the divider and not really provided leadership that the Democratic Party needs,” Mr. Weaver added.
Nowhere has the strain in the Democratic Party been more evident lately than in Mr. Sanders’s relationship with Mr. Reid. Few members of the Senate are closer to Mr. Sanders than Mr. Reid, who had tried to head off any confrontation by speaking personally with Mr. Sanders on Friday to stress the importance of not letting the state convention devolve into a messy fight over a handful of delegates.
“If you want the two damn delegates, you can have them,” Mr. Reid told Mr. Sanders, according to someone with firsthand knowledge of the discussions between the two senators. Though Mr. Reid has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, he has said that he believes Mr. Sanders has earned a right to remain in the race.
After the convention went awry, Mr. Reid and Mr. Sanders spoke again on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Reid expressed dismay that Mr. Sanders’s supporters had acted so belligerently. A member of his own staff was at the convention and feared for her own safety, Mr. Reid said. He also said that the way Sanders supporters had been harassing Roberta Lange, the state party chairwoman — filling her voice mail with threatening, obscene messages and showing up at her Las Vegas restaurant in protest — was over the line.
Mr. Sanders said he agreed and believed that the violence should be condemned. But when he released his statement on Tuesday night, which made only a passing reference to the violence at the convention, a perplexed Mr. Reid told his staff that he thought the gesture was “silly” and beneath Mr. Sanders, according to the person who spoke with Mr. Reid.
The two senators have not spoken since.
Mr. Sanders appeared to be taken somewhat by surprise at the way the Nevada melee was being portrayed, and how negatively it was reflecting on his campaign.
Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, Mr. Sanders’s lone endorser in the Senate, said in an interview that he had spoken with Mr. Sanders on Wednesday and that Mr. Sanders was forceful in his condemnation of the violence.
“He wants to make sure that everyone who asks the question knows the answer: that he 100 percent rejects that type of conduct,” Mr. Merkley said. “We have to step forward and say, totally unacceptable,” he added. “That is the exact opposite of what Trump did. Trump basically embraced violence, encouraged violence. That is a different story. That is the Republican story.”
Mr. Merkley said Mr. Sanders remained committed to staying in the race. Turning the pleas of party unity that some Democrats are making around, Mr. Merkley said that the rift in the party would only deepen if Mr. Sanders was driven from the race now.
“One of the reasons it is so important for him to stay in this race is that when we go to the convention and we’re building the bridge that brings everyone together, people have to feel like they were heard, that they were respected,” Mr. Merkley said.
“You can’t say to them, ‘Hey, we don’t want to hear your views,’ and shut the door on them, and then a month later open the door and say, ‘Hey, can you come in and help us out?’” he added. “He fully intends to go forward.”

Mark Paustenbach
National Press Secretary &
Deputy Communications Director
Democratic National Committee
W: 202.863.8148
[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>

From: Garcia, Walter
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 7:40 PM
To: Miranda, Luis
Cc: Paustenbach, Mark
Subject: Flagging story

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/us/politics/bernie-sanderss-campaign-accuses-head-of-dnc-of-favoritism.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0&referer=https://t.co/s0RjySQuMZ

“If you want the two damn delegates, you can have them,” Mr. Reid told Mr. Sanders, according to someone with firsthand knowledge of the discussions between the two senators. Though Mr. Reid has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, he has said that he believes Mr. Sanders has earned a right to remain in the race

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