A Bernie Sanders Debate Quote Is Reportedly Being Misattributed To Elizabeth Warren

During Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders gave a performance that was considered impressive by many of his supporters for its passion, especially considering his recent heart attack. At one point, Sanders responded to former Vice President Joe Biden’s suggestion that his Medicare for All plan is too expensive.

“I get a little bit tired ?— I must say ?— of people defending a system which is dysfunctional, which is cruel, 87 million uninsured, 30,000 people dying every single year, 500,000 people going bankrupt for one reason, they came down with cancer,” he said, per The Washington Post transcript of the debate.

But according to progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski, some outlets are attributing this quote to Elizabeth Warren.

“Multiple mainstream outlets are doing this. At least 3 of them. How does this happen? One is a mistake, but various ones doing it????” he tweeted.

It appears that the Sanders campaign also noticed — his National Press Secretary, Briahna Joy Gray, commented on the misattributions.

“A line so good that three different outlets falsely attributed it to Elizabeth Warren,” she wrote in response to the outlets in question.

Per Wayback Machine, the original Washington Post transcript appears to have mistakenly attributed the quote, suggesting that there may not have been any malicious intent behind other outlets repeating the mistake. Regardless, the error will likely do little to convince Sanders supporters that he receives fair coverage from mainstream media outlets.

This is the issue: Does the Democratic Party have the guts to stand up to corrupt and greedy insurance companies that bankrupt 500,000 people every year?

If we don’t have the guts to do that, if all we can do is take their money, we should be ashamed of ourselves. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/WFOsT7GJUT

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 16, 2019

As The Inquisitr previously reported, an analysis by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) concluded that MSNBC is biased against Sanders. The Vermont Senator was also subject to a fact check by The Post that proved controversial.

The article focused on Sanders’ statement that 500,000 Americans will go bankrupt this year due to medical bills, which the check deemed “mostly false.” But Dr. David Himmelstein, the source of the statistic, said Sanders was right. Although the article has been updated with a reference to Sanders’ rebuttal to the fact-check, The Post nevertheless stands by its rating of three Pinocchios.

“The overall premise of the piece is absurd,” Sanders’ campaign wrote in a letter to The Post’s executive editor in response.

According to the Sanders campaign, the presidential candidate accurately cited a peer-reviewed editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health, highlighting Himmelstein’s agreement with Sanders’ statement. The letter also points out that the fact-check acknowledges that Himmelstein said Sanders was accurate in the citing of his work before suggesting that the fact-check is part of a “much broader pattern of bias against Senator Sanders.”