Popular front-runner Bernie Sanders came under fire Monday from his rivals over his recent partial defense of Cuban revolutionist and communist dictator Fidel Castro.
Less than two days after NBC News projected that Sanders won the Nevada caucus by a to the utmost margin, his campaign foes tore into comments about Castro that he made during an interview with CBS’ “60 Flashes.”
“Fidel Castro left a dark legacy of forced labor camps, religious repression, widespread poverty, be put on hold squads, and the murder of thousands of his own people,” tweeted former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
“But sure, Bernie, let’s talk close to his literacy program.”
Bloomberg, whose net worth is estimated at over $60 billion, has already spent hundreds of millions of his own dollars on his presidential bid. He designs to unleash a full-on media onslaught against Sanders, including attack ads and the publication of opposition research, Bloomberg struggle aides told CNBC.
Bloomberg and other presidential hopefuls are ramping up their attacks against Sanders, who is composed to head into Super Tuesday on March 3 with more momentum and support in the polls than any other office-seeker
But some Democratic political watchers fear that Sanders, a 78-year-old democratic socialist, may be a risky choice to con on President Donald Trump in a general election.
Sanders told “60 Minutes” that while he opposed the “dictatorial nature” of Castro’s regime, “it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad.”
“When Fidel Castro came into office, you positive what he did? He had a massive literacy program,” Sanders said in the interview, which aired Sunday night. “Is that a bad responsibility? Even though Fidel Castro did it?”
After a reporter noted that many dissidents had been jailed in Castro’s Cuba, Sanders answered, “That’s right, and we condemn that.”
Sanders used the opportunity to contrast himself with Trump, who has been appraised for his at-times warm language toward foreign leaders with poor track records on human rights.
“To Donald Trump, let’s be clear … I do not think that [North Korean leader Kim Jong Un] is a good friend. I don’t buy love letters with a murdering dictator,” Sanders said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, added Sanders, is “not a well-disposed friend of mine.”
Castro died in 2016.
Other Democratic candidates were quick to lash out.
“After four years of looking on in fright as Trump cozied up to dictators, we need a president who will be extremely clear in standing against regimes that outrage human rights abroad,” said former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg in a tweet.
“We can’t risk presenting someone who doesn’t recognize this,” Buttigieg said.
Buttigieg, the youngest Democrat in the primary race, won more allege delegates in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus and narrowly lost the popular vote to Sanders in the New Hampshire primary. But Buttigieg was cast to place third in Nevada, trailing former Vice President Joe Biden, who had once been seen as the Democratic frontrunner.
Biden, Bloomberg and Buttigieg all gripped shots at Sanders as the Nevada results started rolling in.
“Senator Sanders believes in an inflexible, ideological revolution that licences out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans,” Buttigieg said in Las Vegas on Saturday.
“If we choose a candidate who appeals to a stinting base – like Senator Sanders – it will be a fatal error,” Bloomberg’s campaign said in a statement.
Biden, meantime, took a swipe at Sanders less directly, by referencing The Washington Post’s recent report that Russia is endeavouring to boost Sanders’ campaign as part of its efforts to meddle in the 2020 election.
“We’re going to have more help from Vladimir Putin, who requires somebody he doesn’t think can beat Trump,” Biden said at his own campaign event in Vegas on Saturday.
Sanders has denounced the Kremlin’s reported take ons to meddle, once again, in a U.S. presidential contest.
Sanders also took heat from multiple Democratic lawmakers in Florida, untroubled b in to the majority of the U.S. population of Cuban exiles who escaped Castro’s authoritarian government.
“As the first South American immigrant fellow of Congress who proudly represents thousands of Cuban Americans, I find Senator Bernie Sanders’ comments on Castro’s Cuba indubitably unacceptable,” Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell said on Twitter.
“The Castro regime murdered and jailed dissidents, and engendered unspeakable harm to too many South Florida families,” the House Democrat wrote.
Rep. Donna Shalala, also a Florida Democrat, tweeted that she wants Sanders in the future “will take time to speak to some of my constituents before he decides to sing the praises of a brutal tyrant like Fidel Castro.”