Bernie Sanders Booed After Name-Dropping MLK Jr.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: If you are a Democrat running for President, there is already one rule. Do not take any votes for granted. That is why eight of the candidates running for the 2020 nomination showed up at the "She the People Presidential Forum" in Houston organized by women voters of color. Senator Bernie Sanders learned a couple of other things at that event. Answer the question you are asked and do not name drop Dr. King.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you believe is the federal government's role to fight against the rise of white nationalism and white terrorist acts and how do you plan to lead on that in your first year as President?</s>SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: First of all, we have got to make it very clear that the type of demagoguery we are seeing from the Trump administration is not what this country is about and I will do everything that I can to help lead this country in a direction that ends all forms of discrimination.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The core of the question is about as President, what would you do with the rise of white supremacist violence to protect our communities.</s>SANDERS: Absolutely. You know, as somebody who -- I know I date myself a little bit here, but I actually was at the March on Washington with Dr. King back in 1963. And as somebody who actively supported Jesse Jackson's campaign and one of the few white elected officials to do so in '88, I have dedicated my life to the fight against racism and sexism and discrimination of all forms.</s>BALDWIN: Sayu Bhojwani is the woman who asked the question. She is the former New York City commissioner of immigrant affairs and is the founder and president of New American Leaders. So Sayu, thank you so much for coming through and you really asked the question. You even had to have an assist from on stage because it sounds like he wasn't answering your question. Were you satisfied with his answer?</s>SAYU BHOJWANI, QUESTIONED BERNIE SANDERS ON THE RISE OF WHITE NATIONALISM: Absolutely not. I certainly wasn't satisfied with the first part of his answer. I think that I came to that question because in my work with immigrant communities and with people of color there is just this incredible sadness and fear that has developed over the last few years. As we've watched churches being burned. As we watch our young people being killed by police. As we watch our young children being caged. And I brought to that question the weight and the feeling of so many of those conversations. And I didn't feel that we were being seen or heard in that answer.</s>BALDWIN: But yet when you look at the totality of everyone running for President, you have the men, white men at the top of the pack. Senator Sanders and now Joe Biden. Which reminds me of something I want to read this quote for you. Alexis Grenell is a writer. She wrote this piece in "The Daily Beast." Saying while Biden and Sanders are well established candidates with decades of public service and national name recognition, it is galling to see previously obscure men with limited accomplishments like Beto and Mayor Pete leap frog over women whose outside accomplishments and respective resumes would put most people to shame.</s>BHOJWANI: Yes, well, I say two things about that. First, there is a tendency to look at the people who are already in leadership and think that our future leaders should look just like them. And so there is obviously -- we see a lot of white men in leadership and we look at any white man and think they too can lead. And forget there are systemic reasons why white men are the people in power. And just to bring it back to the question that Bernie Sanders was asked, I think for every Presidential candidate it is not enough to have a diverse staff, it's not enough to talk about how you're going to stand up against racism. We've really need to see very specific things that are going to happen to make us feel that we are going to be protected by the future President. So we're talking about things like how are you going to create a national task force to respond to white nationalism? How are you going to address systemic racism in government agencies? How are you going to make sure this rampant disease of white nationalism is going to get responded to?</s>BALDWIN: So given all of that, you spent the day at "She the People." You saw a bunch of people who would like to be President on that stage, who impressed you.</s>BHOJWANI: I think it's generally agreed that Elizabeth Warren won over the audience. I mean, if you were in the room, the energy was electric throughout the day. But what Elizabeth Warren did was really give us proof that she understood our concerns, connected her own experience to ours and most importantly had very specific plans. So we can't take voters for granted and assume we could talk in platitudes and generalizations --</s>BALDWIN: You want substance.</s>BHOJWANI: She understood that.</s>BALDWIN: She brought it. Sayu, thank you so much.</s>BHOJWANI: Thank you.</s>BALDWIN: Coming up next, former Vice President Joe Biden says he asked President Obama not to endorse him as he rolled out his 2020 campaign this morning. But can he keep the Obama coalition on his side? We'll ask our own Van Jones who was once an Obama adviser.