WATCH Bernie Sanders Defend Skipping Bloody Sunday Anniversary: ‘We Showed Up in L.A. Where We Had 15,000 People’

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders was confronted over his decision to skip the annual march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, and defended it by invoking his huge crowd size.

This past Sunday, every major Democratic candidate for president joined civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis and other leaders for a march across the bridge to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the protest, at which police attacked Lewis and other peaceful demonstrators. But Sanders elected to attend a rally in Los Angeles instead.

At a press conference in Utah Monday, a reporter asked Sanders about that choice, saying “Senator in your first test with African-American voters in South Carolina, you frankly did not do well. What do you do to improve that, and does it help that you didn’t show up in a place like Selma, where most of you are rivals were yesterday?”

“No, we showed up in L.A., where we had 15,000 people out last night,” Sanders said, referring to a rally that was headlined by “Public Enemy Radio,” a version of superstar rap group Public Enemy, fronted by Chuck D. The group dismissed legendary hype man Flavor Flav after he criticized the event.

“We did not do as well as we had hoped, absolutely, but I think if you look at some recent polls, actually, nationally, there was a poll that just came out, I think, from Morning Consult if I’m not mistaken, which had us running ahead of Biden with the African-American vote,” Sanders continued. The poll that Sanders selected showed him tied with Biden among black voters, not leading.

“And I think what you will find is Biden did very well in South Carolina, period, end of discussion, he did,” Sanders said, adding, “We won, by the way, younger African Americans.”

NBC News’ exit poll showed Sanders beating Biden by two points with black voters under the age of thirty.

“So I’m not going to tell you that we did well, but I think around the country you’re going to be surprised at how well we will do with the African American…” Sanders said, then called on the next reporter.

Watch the clip above, via KUTV.