Warren to Bernie Sanders during handshake moment: 'I think you called me a liar on national TV'

Show Caption Hide Caption Democratic debate: Sanders and Warren on whether a woman can win Senators Sanders and Warren are given an opportunity to clarify what was reported as a disagreement over whether a woman can win.

Democratic debate viewers were left wondering about an exchange between Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders after cameras caught an abandoned handshake and heated conversation.

In audio released by CNN Wednesday night, you can hear Warren saying, "I think you called me a liar on national TV."

"What?" Sanders asks.

Warren repeats, "I think you called me a liar on national TV."

"You know, let's not do it right now. If you want to have that discussion, we'll have that discussion," Sanders said, to which Warren responds, "Anytime."

"You called me a liar. You told me -- all right, let's not do it now," Sanders says testily.

CNN hosted the event in partnership with the Des Moines Register, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.

"I THINK YOU CALLED ME A LIAR ON NATIONAL TV" pic.twitter.com/c7LWL5SLoh — Ursula Perano (@UrsulaPerano) January 16, 2020

Tensions between Sanders and Warren in the last few days arose out of reports that Sanders told Warren in a December 2018 conversation he disagreed with her that a woman could win the White House, which Sanders has denied.

Asked about it during Tuesday's debate, Sanders said that it was an "incomprehensible" claim and denied he made it. His campaign continued to deny it Wednesday.

"Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't say it. And I don't want to waste a whole lot of time on this, because this is what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want," Sanders said. "Anybody knows me knows that it's incomprehensible that I would think that a woman cannot be president of the United States."

But debate moderator Abby Philip then turned the question to Warren: What did you think when Bernie Sanders told you that a woman could not be president?

“I disagreed,” Warren said, adding that Sanders is “my friend.”

Warren then confronted Bernie immediately after the debate, leading to the audio CNN released Wednesday evening.

The debate was a day after Warren issued a statement acknowledging that Sanders "disagreed" that a woman could beat President Donald Trump in the election in a meeting they had to discuss the 2020 election.

After the debate, cameras were still rolling as candidates shook hands and spoke to one another on stage. There was no audio available at the time.

Sanders held out his hand to Warren as she approached, but she did not shake it. The two instead engaged in what looked like a heated discussion, with Sanders pointing toward Warren and back at himself again before turning away.

Midway through their discussion, businessman Tom Steyer approached the two and looked on at their conversation. Steyer told CNN after the debate that he hadn't heard what was being discussed, however.

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"I was just going up to say 'good night, Sen. Sanders' and I felt like, OK, there's something going on here. 'Good night, I'm out of here,'" he said.

"I really wasn't listening. They were talking about getting together or something," Steyer added. "I really didn't listen. I really -- it was one of those awkward moments where I felt like, you know, I need to move on as fast as possible."

In the audio released Wednesday, Steyer can be heard saying after the tense exchange, “I don't want to get in the middle. I just want to say hi, Bernie.”

Warren did shake hands with former Vice President Joe Biden before the interaction with Sanders, and can be seen also shaking former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg's hand afterward.

But asked about it on Wednesday, Sanders quipped to reporters that the post-debate discussion was "about the weather," according to an NBC News journalist.

Contributing: John Fritze and Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY