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Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is encouraging rapper Cardi B to run for political office, the latest exchange of compliments and support between the unlikely duo.

"Cardi B is deeply concerned about what's happening in the country. She knows what it's like to live in poverty and struggle, and it would be great for her to bring that experience to politics" Sanders told TMZ in an interview posted Tuesday.

The pair teamed up in July to film a campaign video discussing the cancellation of student debt, the climate crisis and raising the minimum wage in an effort to appeal to young voters.

Here's how it happened: Steyer, a wealthy businessman who is self-funding his bid for the Democratic nomination, had just finished up debating with five of his rivals. What better way to cap the night than say your goodbyes to your new friends, right? Mind as well stroll over to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders having a little chat- OH WAIT OH MY GOD NO.

As Sanders and Warren each accused the other of calling them a liar, there's good ole Tom Steyer just kind of standing there. Awkwardly. Actually, "awkwardly" doesn't capture it. What does capture it? Maybe this: You go out to dinner with a married couple you're friends with. As you walk up to the table, they are just finishing up a VERY heated argument. Cue loud chair scraping as you sit down and say: "I don't want to get in the middle. I just want to say hi, Bernie."

Oh wait. That's actually exactly what Steyer said in an attempt to extricate himself from the world's most uncomfortable situation. Which honestly isn't all that bad given that he was coming up with it on the fly and had to be flustered by the whole you're-a-liar-no-you're-the-liar thing he was witnessing play out between Sanders and Warren. Sanders, because he is Sanders and also because he was likely somewhat flustered by the Warren confrontation, offered Steyer this: "Yeah, good, OK." Oomph.

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Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is done talking about her back-and-forth -- in which each candidate said the other called them a liar -- with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders after the seventh presidential debate Tuesday night in Iowa.

Bernie Sanders, Union-Buster

While Hillary Clinton quickly secured endorsements from a slew of large labor organizations in 2015, more than a dozen local and regional union groups have broken with their national leadership and voted to support Bernie Sanders instead.

Many of the Clinton endorsements were decided by national executive boards, which are often small groups of professionals based in Washington, D.C. Sanders has largely won his support among locals, as well as at regional committees.

Bernie Sanders is mad as hell -- and he's hoping Democratic voters are, too.

Just like Trump, Sanders even riffed on polling when asked about his strategy to win over African-American voters, arguing that they'll like him more once he wins in Iowa and New Hampshire.

"We have the momentum. We're on a path to a victory."

Just as “socialism” is becoming more popular with young Americans, so is another label that implies a highly different set of economic policies. Americans aged 18-29 are much more likely than older generations to have a favorable view of the term “libertarian,” referring to a philosophy that favors free markets and small government. Indeed, the demographics of Sanders’s support now and Ron Paul’s support four years ago are not all that different:

If both “socialism” and “libertarianism” are popular among young voters, could it be that younger voters have a wider spread of opinions on economic redistribution, with more responses on both the “0” and “100” ends of the scale? It could be, but that’s not what the data shows.

The cynical interpretation of this is that the appeal of both “socialism” and “libertarianism” to younger Americans is more a matter of the labels than the policy substance. Relatedly, it’s hard to find all that much of a disagreement over core issues between Clinton and Sanders

Like Ocasio-Cortez, I am a pro-choice woman who was raised in the Catholic church. Now happily non-religious, I’m used to holding simultaneous truths that are often painted as contradictory – like, say, revering hard facts while feeling motivated by something deeper than our minds can comprehend.

today the movement mobilizes people of all – or no – faiths across the country to fight inequality.

Leaders draw on scripture alongside statistics to call out the immorality of corporate, government and social structures in the US. Among their fans is Bernie Sanders, who was raised Jewish but isn’t actively involved in organized religion.

Sanders: Clinton 'absolutely correct' in leaked comments on his supporters

In audio released last week by the Washington Free Beacon, Clinton described Sanders supporters as "children of the Great Recession. And they are living in their parents’ basement."

She said that because of those feelings, voters found the idea of a political revolution appealing, adding, "I think we all should be really understanding of that."

The Sanders campaign is a bet that the 2020 race can be won by mobilizing the Americans least committed to the political process while alienating and even offending the Americans most committed to it. It’s a hell of a gamble, and for what? To elect to the presidency a person with a proven record of accomplishing little for the causes he espouses, despite almost 32 years in the House and Senate?

The latest CNN poll showed Sanders erasing Biden’s lead among nonwhite voters—perhaps in spite of Sanders’s indifference to identity politics, or maybe, just maybe, because of that indifference.

But the constellation of issues that predominates among highly online and very well-informed anti-Trump voters matters a lot less to millions of other people who could potentially decide the 2020 election

He volunteered for Gary Hart, the Colorado senator who was the party frontrunner for 1988 until scandal brought him down. Entering elected politics himself, O’Malley was the mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007 and the governor of Maryland from 2008 to 2015. He aimed at the White House as a happy warrior, a guitar-playing politico with a record of progressive policy achievement.

A few days before Iowa votes again, O’Malley walks a few blocks from his Washington office. The room is quiet, the table discreet. The national stage is not. Over at the Capitol, in the impeachment trial, Donald Trump is on his way to acquittal.

never

A big story of the Democratic primaries is the rise of the so-called pragmatic black voters who revived former Vice President Joe Biden's flagging presidential campaign. But there's a flip side to this story that no one is paying attention to: What happened to all those radical black voters who should be rallying to Sen. Bernie Sanders' side?

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a socialist, according to many historians.  W.E.B. DuBois was a socialist,  and so were civil rights leaders A. Philip Randolph and  Bayard Rustin. The most prominent black philosopher today,  Cornel West,  is a socialist and Sanders' supporter. Hip-hop artists, such as rapper "Killer Mike" and Chuck D of Public Enemy, are also big Sanders supporters. Read More .pg.t-light .zn-body-text h3 { text-align: center; font-weight: 900; } @media screen and (min-width: 640px) { .zn-body-text h3:not(.el__headline):not(.cd__headline):before { margin: 60px auto 10px; } } There is  arguably no group in America that should be more suspicious of unfettered capitalism than blacks. Slavery, for example, was driven as much by greed as racism. And blacks lost half  of their wealth due to the 2008

"You can't have capitalism without racism," Malcolm X once  said.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won the Democrats Abroad primary and secured nine delegates, Democrats Abroad announced on Monday.

As of Monday, Biden has a more than 300-delegate lead over Sanders, according to CNN's estimate.

Democrats Abroad is the official arm of the Democratic Party for Americans living overseas, and voters in 180 countries cast their ballots in the primary. Sanders won 57.9% of the vote and 9 delegates, and former Vice President Joe Biden won 22.7% of the vote and 4 delegates.

A key part of Sanders’ message (and again, greatly amplified by his most vocal backers) is that that those other people, who collectively make up much of the party are either wrong on the key issues, hypocritical on policy or even corrupt. Calling them “the establishment” makes that easier to say. But 60% or 70% of Democratic primary voters by definition can’t be the establishment.

If you’re bidding to take over management of a political party and your politics, campaign or supporters have defined that party as in real ways the enemy or the problem that’s going to be a tough sell. I mean, this is obvious.

The Sanders campaign often talks as though it’s only talking about an establishment of insiders and power brokers. But that just leaves millions of activists and voters erased from the picture entirely. The last 72 hours is a case in point. To hear many Sanders surrogates describe it, the establishment and power brokers closed ranks and pushed Biden into the lead. But again, this just pretends like millions of voters don’t exist, or function as pawns of party elites

In an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, Sen. Bernie Sanders said if former Vice President Joe Biden had a plurality of delegates entering the convention he should be the Democratic party's presidential nominee. However, Sanders also said it would be unfair and a disaster if superdelegates selected a candidate on the second ballot that had earned fewer delegates than another candidate in the primary race. "If Biden walks into the convention or at the end of the process has more votes than me, he's the winner," Sanders told Maddow on Wednesda

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: If at the end of the day it turns out that Vice President Biden is going to have more delegates than you do heading into the convention, will you drop out? SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Of course I'm going to drop out. He will win. We'll run through -- I suspect we will run through the process letting people have a right to vote, but if Biden walks into the convention or at the end of the process has more votes than me, he's the winner.

We fought very hard in the Democratic rules process to get rid of all superdelegates. That is my preference. I think it should be the decision of the people, not Washington insiders. We lost, but what we did get is not getting rid of all superdelegates at convention voting but on the first ballot there will be no superdelegates. In other words, we go into the first ballot, it is representatives, delegates who are represented by the people, and I think that that's right.

Since Trump’s authorization of a drone strike killing the top Iranian commander Qassem Suleimani last week – and Iran’s retaliatory response on Tuesday night – the top contenders for the Democratic nomination are treating the threat of further escalation as a clarifying moment in the final weeks before voting begins.

On Wednesday, Trump announced that his administration would impose new economic sanctions on Tehran in response to Iran’s launch of more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two US military bases in Iraq.

National security and foreign policy have played only a limited role in the Democratic primary, which has so far been dominated by domestic issues including healthcare and the economy. But the rising international tensions have reoriented the policy debate, bringing into sharp relief long-simmering divisions within the party over matters of war and peace.

That's the only possible takeaway from the ongoing back and forth between Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts over whether the former told the latter that he did not believe a woman could be elected president in 2020. And the feud got worse, not better, during -- and after -- Tuesday night's Iowa debate.

Warren was then asked what her reaction was to what Sanders had said back in 2018. "I disagreed," she said. "Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie. But, look, this question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised, and it's time for us to attack it head-on."

On the other side of the argument, Third Way senior vice president Lanae Erickson tweeted this of the Sanders-Warren handshake-that-wasn't: "That moment when the dude who called himself a "feminist" on his profile shows his true colors on date 5...You hate to see it."

Two candidates, both alike in dignity/ In fair Iowa, where we lay our scene/ From ancient truce break to new mutiny.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t say it,” Sanders said, implying that Warren, who confirmed the report, was lying.

“I disagreed,” Warren said. She pointed out that she was the only candidate on stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican in the past 30 years. “Look at the men on the stage – collectively they’ve lost 10 elections,” she added.

As the first primaries and caucuses of 2020 approach, the race for the Democratic nomination is shaping up to be a three-way primary between Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. This means the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is going toe-to-toe with the centrist wing of the party, whose policies are less intrusive to entrenched corporate power. The most certain way to ensure the corporate wing wins is for the progressive wing to fracture.

According to FiveThirtyEight's most recent assessment of which candidate is most likely to win the nomination, Biden comes out in front, with the data model giving him a 40%chance of winning outright and predicting he'll receive, on average, over 1,500 pledged delegates. Sen. Sanders has a 23% chance of winning outright, with the model. F forecasting an average of over 1,000 pledged delegates, and Sen. Warren has a 13% chance, with around 700.

Nominating Biden could very well lead to four more years of President Trump, given his lack of a robust volunteer base. As the Philadelphia Inquirer noted in October, debate watch parties organized by Biden's campaign were sparsely attended. The Biden campaign's impotent efforts in Iowa were well-documented by The New York Times in November, with one county Democratic Party chair calling the unscripted portions of his speeches "unfocused and less energetic."

It’s a familiar scenario. An exchange occurs in private. Only the two figures involved – a man and a woman – know what truly transpired. But once they leave that room and start to tell their version of events, the man is given the benefit of the doubt and the woman faces intense scrutiny and skepticism.

This is the basic set-up for any number of high-profile cases, stories of rapists and other sexual offenders evading legal prosecution or other consequences for years as their accusers were painted as gold diggers, political operatives, and compulsive liars

But “believe women” is getting thrown around by political strategists and official opinion-havers to support the Elizabeth Warren’s claim that Bernie Sanders told her, in a private meeting with no witnesses and no evidentiary support, that a woman could not win the presidency in 2020. This is not only a grotesque distortion of what “believe women” is supposed to mean, it undermines the good work the phrase’s use was doing.

“Look, we all have big progressive plans,” Biden said, as if to reassure Democratic voters. Michael Bennet touted bipartisan immigration legislation that he helped to write as “the most progressive DREAM Act” ever put together.

He won it when his rivals talked more about whether Medicare for All could ever get through Congress than about whether such a huge expansion of the federal government was a good idea in the first place.

He won it when they competed to throw many more trillions than the next candidate at climate change. He won it when the disagreement became not about free tuition at public colleges but about the eligibility of students from families above a certain income level.