The establishment is in full panic mode over Bernie Sanders, whose rise in the polls has been accompanied by not one, but two Monday morning media hit pieces.

First, as we reported earlier, Democrats have been riled by Sanders' attacks on Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren - recently saying that President Trump will 'eat Joe Biden's lunch' if he is the nominee.

Second, Sanders took flack after it emerged that campaign volunteers have been telling potential voters that Warren is trying to capture upper-income Democrats and would not attract new voters to the party.

In response, CNN (one day before a CNN debate) reports in a thinly-sourced article that Sanders told Warren in a private 2018 meeting that a woman can't win in 2020 against Donald Trump - based on the accounts of four people "two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting."

That evening, Sanders expressed frustration at what he saw as a growing focus among Democrats on identity politics, according to one of the people familiar with the conversation. Warren told Sanders she disagreed with his assessment that a woman could not win, three of the four sources said. Sanders denied the characterization of the meeting in a statement to CNN. -CNN

Lightly sourced and denied by Sanders. The liberal media desperately wants these candidates and their campaigns to fight over bullshit.



Before you dig in your heels, ask yourself why that might be. https://t.co/UmDnEObaCP — Sam Adler-Bell (@SamAdlerBell) January 13, 2020

if this were true, seems like warren would have a responsibility to go on the record with confirmation! https://t.co/oTDgcmOJQm — Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) January 13, 2020

Sanders hit back, telling CNN "It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn't win."

"It's sad that, three weeks before the Iowa caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren't in the room are lying about what happened. What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could. Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016."

If this stuff is coming *from* the Warren campaign, shame on them. It won't help her win, but it could destroy our best chance at a progressive presidency. https://t.co/lnjhBGxCzj — Sam Adler-Bell (@SamAdlerBell) January 13, 2020

Needless to say, there aren't a lot of hot takes floating around which are supportive of this unbelievable, second-hand claim.