Charlie Rangel: ‘I Don’t Know Any Black Person Who Knows Bernie Sanders’

From the Daily Caller:

And who is Bernie Sanders? Does anybody in the community know him, so that we can find out who he is?’ These are things that we are talking about,” said Rangel, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton.

When pressed about his statement about Sanders, Rangel responded that he is not the one who is asking these questions for Clinton’s primary opponent.

“Not me, but I don’t know any black person who knows Bernie Sanders,” he said.

Rangel gave a scenario of someone asking him about Sanders.

“If you ask me, ‘who is that? A nice member of Congress?’ He’s a nice member of the Senate.”

This is really quite strange because Charlie Rangel is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The CPC has 75 members in the House and one in the Senate, Bernie Sanders. 

The CPC membership overlaps significantly with the Congressional Black Caucus.

Oh, and Bernie was a founding member of the CPC, along with Maxine Waters and Ron Dellums.

Surely Charlie Rangel (who’s my rep) knows this. So what is Rangel trying to say? That Bernie doesn’t have a national profile with black voters? I think that’s changing as we get deeper into the calendar.

BTW, Rangel endorsed Hillary, but said back in November 2014:

I don’t see how anyone is going to challenge her. On the Republican side or the Democratic side.

…

But, you know, I don't like coronations.

The coronation, as we know, has been put on hold. So this race must be more to Rangel’s liking now.