Cory Booker Attacks Bernie Sanders For Taking Big Pharma Campaign Donations

New Jersey Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker took some jabs at Bernie Sanders for campaign donations that the Vermont senator has accepted from pharmaceutical company executives.

On Thursday morning, Booker was interviewed by Robert Costa at a Washington Post Live event, where he was asked about Sanders’ recent pledge not to accept donations from pharmaceutical company executives.

“Senator Sanders, in a major speech this week, saying all candidates should reject money from the healthcare industry,” Costa said, and asked, “Would you do so?”

“Well, we immediately heard him and looked at his standards, and we saw that he took money from people we wouldn’t take money from,” Booker replied.

“So the question, and we’re happy to talk more about that, but I know where Senator Sanders heart is, and he’s absolutely right,” Booker continued, “that we should, it’s hard to campaign wrong and then govern right.”

“So before I was even running for president, as a senator I took an audit and said okay, what are the kind of resources we’re taking that we shouldn’t, that’s when we gave up,” Booker said. “We took the anti-Citizens United pledge and said my campaign would not take corporate PAC money, C-suite pharma executives…”

“But you’ll still take some healthcare money?” Costas asked.

“Again, we are not taking corporate PAC money, we’re not taking pharma executives, we have our standards, he has his,” Booker said, and again noted “We see him taking money that we wouldn’t take, I have a feeling he’ll return that money, but I’m glad to see all of us now setting standards for how campaigns should be run.”

“I wish we saw the same thing happening on the Republican side, I wish we actually had a bipartisan commitment like John McCain had in his early days, to deal with the corrupting force of money and politics,” Booker added.

Senator Booker is referencing reporting that Sanders, prior to making his most recent pledge, accepted donations in excess of $200 apiece from several pharmaceutical executives. But the Sanders campaign has already indicated that it will be returning the donations, which it says total $2700.00.

Watch the clip above, via The Washington Post.

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Source: Mediaite.com

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