Independent Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders pegged Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s rise in the primary polls to, among other things, the idea that there are “a certain number of people who would like to see a woman elected.”

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s Cuomo PrimeTime, anchor Chris Cuomo described recent polling showing Warren catching — and even surpassing, in some cases — Sanders in the polls, and asked him “What do you think the reason is that Elizabeth Warren is catching up to you in polls? Do you believe that people see her as the more electable version of Bernie Sanders?”

“Well, I think we are running against a lot of problems,” Sanders said, and then described two of those “problems.”

“I think that there are certain number of people who would like to see a woman elected, and I understand that,” Sanders said. “There are people who would like to see somebody who was younger, and I understand that also. There are a lot of factors out there.”

Since the beginning of his campaign, and during his last campaign, Sanders has expressed acute concern that voters might select a candidate based solely on their race, gender, or age. But Sanders has also said he would pick a woman who is younger than he is as running mate.

“Elizabeth is a friend of mine, I think she’s running a good campaign,” Sanders continued, “but at the end of the day, Chris, whether it’s Biden or Warren, Elizabeth Warren, or anybody else, what I believe is that in fact I am the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump, and I think some of the polling shows that.”

Sanders is correct, he and Biden poll well ahead of other Democrats in head-to-head matchups with Trump, and those polls show Sanders defeating Trump by as many as twelve points.

Cuomo also asked Sanders about a tweet that has been perceived as an attack on Warren. On Wednesday, Sanders retweeted a Politico tweet that read: “Centrists are coming around to Elizabeth Warren as an alternative to Bernie Sanders,” and added his own comment: “The cat is out of the bag. The corporate wing of the Democratic Party is publicly ‘anybody but Bernie’.”

The cat is out of the bag. The corporate wing of the Democratic Party is publicly “anybody but Bernie.” They know our progressive agenda of Medicare for All, breaking up big banks, taking on drug companies and raising wages is the real threat to the billionaire class. https://t.co/zimci7JRO6 — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 19, 2019

“The assertion aside, Elizabeth Warren can’t be their poster child then, right?” Cuomo asked. “I mean she’s been going after corporate conglomerates in a big way for a long time.”

“That tweet was not about Elizabeth Warren at all. Not at all,” Sanders said and explained that it was directed at “a group called Third Way. And you know the third way is the corporatist wing of the Democratic party. And I am a little bit tired of hearing from these people, and this is not the first time that I’ve heard about it, and they said we will support anybody except Bernie Sanders.”

He then asked what the group would do if he wins the nomination. “Are they going to support Donald Trump, or are they going to support Bernie Sanders?”

Sanders had asked the same question on Twitter hours earlier, and the group responded, “We absolutely will — we are proud Democrats. We all strongly supported our nominee against Trump in 2016, and we will do the same in 2020. Can you say the same of your entire senior team?”

Watch the clip above, via CNN.

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