Kerry: Sanders is ‘distorting’ Biden’s record over vote for Iraq war

Former Secretary of State John Kerry said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is “distorting” his presidential primary opponent former Vice President Joe Biden’s record over his vote in favor of the Iraq War. 

“I think Bernie is regrettably distorting Joe’s record,” Kerry, a Biden campaign surrogate, said Sunday on CBS “Face the Nation.” 

He added that Sanders “doesn’t have what Joe Biden has,” in terms of eight years on the national security council. 

Kerry continued that he knows “very well what Joe’s position” since he answered the same questions in 2003 and 2004, when he was running for president. 

.@JohnKerry on @BernieSanders criticism of @JoeBiden’s vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq: “Bernie is distorting Joe’s record,” adds “he doesn’t have what Joe Biden has.” pic.twitter.com/FgNdNGDGak

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 12, 2020

“It was very clear that what we were doing was listening to a president that made a pledge, that he was going to do diplomacy, he was going to exhaust diplomacy build a coalition, and ultimately we learned, as Joe did and I did, that the intelligence was distorted,” Kerry said. 

“So Joe spoke out and criticized, Joe was against what they were doing,” he added.

{mosads}Kerry added that  the vote “was not a vote especially to go to war it was a vote for the president to have leverage with respect to getting Saddam Hussein back to the … inspections.” 

“I think we were let down, and Joe has said many times it was a mistake, obviously, to trust the words of the administration who didn’t follow through on what they said they were going to do,” Kerry said. 

His remarks come after the Sanders campaign slammed Biden’s decision to vote for the Iraq War. 

Jeff Weaver, Senior advisor to the Sanders campaign, said in a statement that it is “appalling” that Biden “still refused to admit he was dead wrong on the Iraq War.” 

“Unlike 23 of his Senate colleagues who got it right, Biden made explicitly clear that he was voting for war, and even after the war started, he boasted that he didn’t regret it,” Weaver said in a statement late Saturday.