Former Clinton strategist James Carville says Putin is ‘helping’ Bernie so Trump can win

Former Clinton strategist James Carville declared that the Nevada Caucuses were going ‘very well’ for Vladimir Putin ahead of Senator Bernie Sanders being projected to win, making him the frontrunner for Democratic presidential nominee.

Carville, who advised Hillary Clinton during her failed 2008 presidential campaign, claimed the caucus results proved Putin wanted ‘Trump to win’ when speaking with MSNBC on Saturday. 

‘Right now, it’s about 1:15 Moscow time. This thing is going very well for Vladimir Putin. I promise you,’ vouched Carville. ‘He’s probably staying up watching this right now. How you doing, Vlad?’ 

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The strategist – who once claimed former President Barack Obama was the candidate ‘most likely to explode or implode’ during the 08 election – did state that he does not believe ‘Sanders wants Putin to help’. 

‘The happiest person right now is Vladimir Putin,’ Carville said. ‘I don’t think Sanders wants Putin to help.’ 

But he added that Putin was helping the senator from Vermont win because he wants ‘Donald Trump to win’.

‘I mean, it’s a straight line. I don’t think the Sanders campaign in any way is collusion or collaboration,’ he added. ‘I think they don’t like this story, but the story is a fact, and the reason that the story is a fact is Putin is doing everything that he can to help Trump, including trying to get Sanders the Democratic nomination.’

Carville stressed that it was important for the candidates in Monday’s debate in South Carolina ‘quit attacking each other and start talking about where this country is and how do you push it forward under some real choices that Democrats have to make,’ in order to beat Trump. He also insinuated that Sanders would not be the candidate who could beat Trump.

‘The entire theory that by expanding the electorate, increasing turnouts, you can win elections, is the equivalent of climate denying. When people say that, they are as stupid to a political scientist as a climate denier is to an atmospheric scientist,’ he said in a nod to how Sanders has blasted Trump’s denial of climate change.

‘If you’re voting for him because you think he’ll win the election, because he’ll galvanize heretofore sleepy parts of an electorate, then politically, you’re a fool.

‘And that’s just a fact. It’s no denying it, there’s so much political science, so much research on this that it’s not even a debatable question. And if people are appraised of this, and they know that, and they want to do it as Democrats, that’s their own business. But I don’t think they have all the facts that they need before they make this judgment going forward.’

When pointed out by MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that what he was ‘describing a lot what sounds like political suicide’, Carville replied: ‘It is.’

He added that a Sanders win would be ‘hitting the bottom’.

Sanders and Carville have butted heads in the past, with the presidential candidate calling the strategist a ‘political hack’ while speaking with Anderson Cooper on CNN earlier this month. 

He referred to Carville as being part of the ‘Democratic establishment’ that he is taking on in his campaign. 

Carville’s remarks come as Sanders warned Russia on Friday to stay out of 2020 White House elections after US officials had told him Moscow was trying to aid his campaign in a classified briefing.

‘The intelligence community is telling us they are interfering in this campaign, right now, in 2020. And what I say to Mr. Putin, if elected president, trust me you are not going to be interfering in American elections,’ Sanders told reporters in Bakersfield, California.

Sanders, 78, a democratic socialist US senator from Vermont, is considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

The Washington Post on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter, said US officials had told Sanders about the Russian effort and had also informed Republican President Donald Trump and US lawmakers.

It was not clear what form the Russian assistance took, the paper said.

A congressional source confirmed intelligence officials have told lawmakers Russia appears to be engaging in disinformation and propaganda campaigns to boost the 2020 campaigns of both Sanders and Trump.

The source, however, cautioned that the findings are very tentative.

Sanders said he was briefed about a month ago. His campaign noted the briefing was classified. 

‘We were told that Russia, maybe other countries, are going to get involved in this campaign,’ Sanders told reporters. 

‘Look, here is the message: To Russia, stay out of American elections.’

‘What they are doing, by the way, the ugly thing that they are doing – and I’ve seen some of their tweets and stuff – is they try to divide us up,’ he said. 

‘They are trying to cause chaos. They’re trying to cause hatred in America.’

Sanders’ campaign put out a statement which read: ‘Unlike Donald Trump, I do not consider Vladimir Putin a good friend.

‘He is an autocratic thug who is attempting to destroy democracy and crush dissent in Russia. 

‘Let’s be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us up and, unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts, and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election.’

The Kremlin on Friday denied Russia was interfering in the US presidential campaign to boost Trump’s re-election chances, following reports that American intelligence officials warned Congress about the election threat last week.

‘These are more paranoid announcements which, to our regret, will multiply as we get closer to the (US) election,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

‘They have nothing to do with the truth.’

US intelligence officials told members of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee in a classified briefing that Russia was again interfering in American politics ahead of November’s election, as it did in 2016, a person familiar with the discussion told Reuters on Thursday.