A prominent staff member for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign declared that she will not endorse or help the Democratic Party’s nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and also indicated that the sexual assault allegations raised by Tara Reade may result in Biden being replaced as the nominee at the Democratic convention.
Former Sanders press secretary Briahna Joy Gray has been vocal on social media about her disagreement with Sanders about his Biden endorsement. She told The Atlantic in an interview on Thursday that Biden simply has not done enough to win her vote, or the votes of many other progressive voters.
“The point of my tweet was to say that it is frustrating for a lot of supporters of progressive politics to see leaders in our movement seemingly fall in line with establishment politics without extracting any concessions on issues like a wealth tax, free child care, and Medicare for All. If these are in fact existential issues, then we need to behave that way, and not stop fighting.”
Many say that Gray’s resistance towards supporting Biden is a reminder of the 2016 situation when many Sanders’ supporters refused to back Hillary Clinton in the general election, which she lost to her opponent, current president Donald Trump.
Most Sanders supporters deny any blame for the many failures of the Democratic Party, including Gray, who said this in an interview. “No matter what progressives do, we’re going to get framed as somehow responsible for any negative outcome. Bernie Sanders was persistently asked, ‘Will you support the nominee?’ He said yes, more vociferously than anyone else in the race. But he and his movement are still being held responsible for wanting Joe Biden to be a better nominee or pointing out obvious flaws that might damage his candidacy.”
The former Sanders’ staffer also insinuated that Biden may very well not even be the nominee at the upcoming Democratic convention. Gray indicated that the sexual assault allegations raised by Tara Reade against the former vice president have not been thoroughly investigated as of yet and could definitely present a serious problem for the presidential hopeful.
“There’s a lot of reasons why Democrats might want to substitute a different person for Joe Biden as the nominee. The Tara Reade allegation has been handled abysmally by the press. If anyone looks at this closely, then they will see reason for concern,” said Gray.
In the end, the former Bernie Sanders employee said that she would in fact vote for Biden. She also added a stipulation to that vote that included the support of a long list of progressive policies that includes, “Medicare for All, canceling student-loan debt, canceling medical debt, having a wealth tax.”
