The Slatest

Sanders Refuses to Condemn Rosario Dawson’s Lewinsky Reference at Rally

Actress Rosario Dawson attends the Harlem Women’s Roundtable Conversation at Row House on April 1 in New York City.  

Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Actress Rosario Dawson, a surrogate for Bernie Sanders’ campaign, said on Saturday night that she stood with Monica Lewinsky in the fight against bullying. “We are literally under attack for not just supporting the other candidate. Now I’m with Monica Lewinsky with this: bullying is bad,” Dawson said on Saturday night as she introduced Sanders. “She’s actually dedicated her life now to talking about that.” The actress, who has not been shy about harshly criticizing Clinton in the past, said that Sanders supporters are being bullied “as a campaign strategy.”

Sanders doesn’t seem to mind much. In an interview with CNN, Sanders refused to answer whether he thought Dawson’s reference to Lewinsky was appropriate. “Rosario is a great actress and she’s doing a great job for us,” Sanders said. When he was pressed on the issue, Sanders said he didn’t have enough information to make a judgment but called on supporters to stick to the issues: “I have no idea in what context Rosario was talking about her. But I would hope that all of our people would focus on the real issues facing working people and the massive level of wealth and income inequality.” He then said it would be great if the media focused on climate change instead.

Dawson comments on bullying referred to a super PAC called Correct the Record, which has vowed to engage with users on social media who post negative things about Hillary Clinton. The super PAC rejected Dawson’s characterizations of its actions. “This is the farthest thing from bullying—posting positive graphics about Hillary is our job,” said Elizabeth Shappell, communications director for Correct the Record.

*Correction, April 25, 2016: This post originally misspelled Bernie Sanders’ first name.