Elections

Bernie Sanders Endorses DNC Chief’s Primary Opponent

Reuters/Gary Cameron

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
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If Bernie Sanders has his way, Democratic National Committee chair and Florida Congresswoman [crscore]Debbie Wasserman Schultz[/crscore] will lose both of her jobs this year.

In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that is set to air on Sunday, Sanders endorsed Tim Canova in his Aug. 30 primary challenge against Wasserman Schultz. He also said that if he is elected president he will replace her as DNC chair.

“Well, clearly, I favor her opponent,” Sanders told Tapper. “His views are much closer to mine than as to Wasserman Shultz’s.”

Canova is a law professor at Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law in Fort Lauderdale. In 2011, he served as an adviser for Sanders’ Wall Street reform panel. He has endorsed Sanders for president.

The relationship between the Sanders campaign and Wasserman Schultz has long been frayed, but it devolved further after last Saturday’s Nevada delegate convention. Sanders supporters accused state party leaders of hijacking the delegate allocation process in favor of Hillary Clinton.

Many Sanders supporters responded angrily and disrupted the convention. Wasserman Schultz weighed in and said that Sanders did not do enough to condemn his rowdy supporters’ behavior.

Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver responded to that earlier this week, saying that Wasserman Schultz was “throwing shade” at the campaign.

“We can have a long conversation about Debbie Wasserman Schultz just about how she’s been throwing shade on the Sanders campaign from the very beginning,” Weaver told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday.

“It’s not the DNC,” he continued. “By and large, people in the DNC have been good to us. Debbie Wasserman Schultz really is the exception.”

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