AMES, Iowa — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, a two-term former vice president, said that his rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, personally apologized to him in Des Moines after a supporter said that Biden “had a big corruption problem.”
Law professor and former New York gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout published an op-ed in the Guardian that said that if Biden became the Democrats’ presidential nominee, it would make it more difficult for the party to defeat President Donald Trump, a Republican, in the 2020 general election.
“Biden has a big corruption problem and it makes him a weak candidate,” wrote Teachout, who has endorsed Sanders for president. “I know it seems crazy,” Teachout wrote, “but a lot of the voters we need – independents and people who might stay home – will look at Biden and Trump and say: ‘They’re all dirty.'”
Biden told Channel 13 news Tuesday that following the Iowa Brown and Black Presidential Forum Monday night, Sanders apologized for Teachout’s piece. “He said…’Joe, I’m sorry. I don’t subscribe to that. I don’t think that’s true,'” Biden recounted.
Sanders apologized for what his supporter wrote.
