'I Think You Called Me a Liar on National TV'

The mystery of what Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren said to each other after she refused to shake his hand wasn't a mystery for long. CNN, which hosted the Democratic debate in Des Moines Tuesday night, managed to find audio of the post-debate exchange and released a recording Wednesday. "I think you called me a liar on national TV," Warren tells Sanders, who replies: "What?" "I think you called me a liar on national TV,” Warren says again. "You know, let’s not do it right now," Sanders says. "If you want to have that discussion, we’ll have that discussion." "Anytime," Warren replies. "You called me a liar," says Sanders. "You told me—all right, let's not do it now," he says. Tom Steyer then gets in the middle, saying, "I don't want to get in the middle. I just want to say 'Hi, Bernie.'"

Warren and Sanders had been talking about their dispute over whether he told her in 2018 that a woman couldn't win the presidency, the New York Times reports. He denied the claim during Tuesday's debate, noting that he had said decades ago that a woman could win. The rift between the two progressives has alarmed supporters of both candidates, who worry that it could benefit centrists like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg. Neil Sroka, an activist with the Democracy for America progressive group, tells Politico that the dispute has galvanized Sanders supporters, who donated more than $1.7 million Tuesday. (More Election 2020 stories.)