CNN Asks Bernie Sanders if He’s ‘Misleading’ on Abortion Votes. Is He?

Independent Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was on the hot seat this weekend when CNN anchor Dana Bash asked if he is “misleading” voters about his record on a key abortion rights issue.

On Sunday morning’s edition of CNN’s State of the Union, Bash asked Sanders about the recent controversy over the so-called Hyde Amendment, which prohibits Medicaid funds from being used to pay for abortion care.

Sanders and other Democratic candidates came down on former Vice President Joe Biden like a ton of bricks last week when Biden’s campaign announced that he still supported the measure, which was followed by a quick reversal from Biden himself.

But on Sunday, Bash pressed Sanders on his own voting record regarding the Hyde Amendment.

“Joe Biden changed his position this week, opposes the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits using taxpayer dollars for abortion services,” Bash said. “You oppose it too. And you said this week that you have — quote — ‘always voted against the Hyde Amendment.'”

“But you have actually voted in the past to support large spending bills that include the Hyde Amendment,” she continued, and asked “Is it misleading, Senator, to say that you have never voted for it?”

“Well, look, sometimes, you — in a large bill, you have to vote for things you don’t like,” Sanders replied. “But I think my record as being literally 100 percent pro-choice is absolutely correct.”

He added that “if you believe, as I do, that a woman’s right to control her own body is a constitutional right, then that must apply to all women, including low-income women. That is what I have always believed, and that is what I believe right now.”

Sanders also condemned the anti-abortion rights laws being passed in states like Alabama and Georgia, and said “I don’t have a whole lot of litmus tests regarding Supreme Court nominees, but I do have one on this issue, and that I will never, never nominate somebody to the Supreme Court who is not 100 percent defending Roe vs. Wade.”

What Bash said was correct, Bernie Sanders has voted to pass the Hyde Amendment, but so has every other 2020 Democrat who has ever voted to pass a large appropriations bill. That includes Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who delivered one of the more impassioned anti-Hyde arguments last week.

That’s because the Hyde Amendment isn’t a permanent law, but rather a rider that has been attached to appropriations bills since it was introduced in 1976 by then-Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL).

But Sanders, as well as 2020 opponents like Warren, Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) have also voted against measures to make Hyde a permanent law, as have Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) did not vote.

And many Democratic candidate currently serving in Congress, including Sanders, have co-sponsored bills that would permanently repeal Hyde.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Sanders made a pledge to repeal Hyde if elected president after Hillary Clinton had already begun campaigning on the issue.

Sanders’ pledge came one day after NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue blasted Sanders for referring to Planned Parenthood as part of the “establishment,” and noted that Sanders had “yet to match Hillary Clinton’s courageous, public call for repealing the discrimination against low-income women enshrined in the Hyde Amendment.”

But even then, Hogue noted Sanders’ strong voting record on abortion issues, if in a backhanded way. “Senator Sanders’ health care plan does not mention women or reproductive health. We can assume women’s health services are intended to be covered, based on his past record. But in a political landscape this hostile to reproductive rights, words matter — as do their absence,” Hogue wrote.

One question that has not been asked of this crop of Democrats is whether, as president, they would force the issue of Hyde by vetoing any appropriations bills that contained the measure, even if it meant risking a government shutdown.

But MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt did put that question to former Hillary Clinton senior adviser Zerlina Maxwell recently. Maxwell said that “you have to stand up and leave even when it’s not easy,” and that while “no Democrat who’s serious about governing would [risk a shutdown] on a whim,” she thinks that “a Democrat needs to be very clear in this moment about where they stand on abortion rights.”

For the moment, Democratic candidates who voted for funding bills that included the Hyde Amendment, but have staked out positions and voting records against the measure as well, enjoy safety in numbers. But they should all be ready to answer the tougher question of how far they would push the issue as president, a question that’s sure to come up soon.

Watch Bash’s exchange with Sanders above, via CNN.