Sanders wants Clinton to join him in standing up to DNC

SIOUX CITY, Ia. — Sen. Bernie Sanders didn't mince words Monday night, saying Democratic leaders aren't doing themselves any favors airing debates at times when few people are watching.

"Is that an accident? No, I don’t think it was," Sanders told The Des Moines Register. "I think it was intentionally designed to make sure that I and Gov. (Martin) O’Malley get less exposure."

While the Republican debates have garnered more viewers in their weekday prime-time slots, the Democrats have so far scheduled two of their three debates for Saturday evenings. The Nov. 14 debate in Des Moines aired concurrently with an Iowa football game and last weekend's contest in New Hampshire was scheduled for the Saturday before Christmas.

Sanders blames the Democratic National Committee for trying to tip the scales in favor of front-runner Hillary Clinton. But in an interview with the Register, he implored the former secretary of state to use her influence to call for a level playing field.

"I think the responsibility is with the DNC, but I would hope that the secretary would say, 'Look when we debate, we should want to have those debates at an optimum time when as many people as possible will see them,'" Sanders said. "At the end of the day, between the three Republican debates and the three Democratic debates up to now, millions, millions, millions more saw those Republican debates. That’s a failure of the Democratic leadership to my mind."

Lily Adams, spokeswoman for Clinton's Iowa campaign, said Clinton isn't running away from debates, but trying to use them to her advantage.

"Hillary Clinton has used the debates to do what she’s done the whole campaign: demonstrate that she is the best candidate to take on the Republicans and to address the key issues facing American families, from rising incomes to national security," Adam said. "Given her three decisive victories, we hope as many viewers as possible are watching the debates to get a real view of where she stands and how she’ll fight for them."

Sanders, who is in the middle of a three-day campaign swing through western Iowa, said the debate setup is bad for the Democratic Party. Sanders is an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and identifies as a "democratic socialist."

"The idea that we had, I believe, 11 million fewer viewers for our debate on Saturday night than the last Republican debate is awful," the Vermont senator said Monday before a campaign rally in Sioux City. "I mean, we’re dealing with right-wing extremists here. We should be speaking to millions of Americans explaining our point of view."

The latest Republican debate drew in 18 million viewers, while Saturday's Democratic debate was viewed by 7.85 million people, according to Nielsen.

The DNC has downplayed the ratings gap. On Monday, DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda wrote that 2016 Democratic primary debate audiences are larger than the audiences for 58 out of 61 primary debates from 2008 and 2012. He also noted that Republicans have also scheduled their network debates on weekend nights.

Tensions still brewing over voter file

Sanders' tension with the DNC was only heightened last week when his campaign's access to a database of voter information was cut off after it was determined that Sanders staffers inappropriately accessed proprietary information collected by the Clinton campaign. The Sanders campaign, citing a previous breach, blamed the DNC and its vendor for not securing the voter file and filed a federal lawsuit over the issue on Friday. The DNC reinstated the campaign's access Friday evening.

The Sanders campaign fired one staffer and suspended two others who accessed Clinton's data. Sanders said any information obtained inappropriately won't be used by his organization.

Both Sanders and Clinton seemed to put the issue behind them at Saturday's debate, when Sanders apologized to Clinton and his own supporters. But his campaign pushed the issue forward Monday, calling on Clinton to join their plea for an independent investigation into the DNC's firewall issues.

Though he took a swipe at some of Clinton's debate statements Monday, Sanders did not address the data security issue at his Sioux City rally.

Tuesday, a DNC spokesman said it has agreed with the Sanders campaign on the need for a "full accounting of the data that was inappropriately accessed and an independent audit to determine that the data is no longer in the campaign’s possession." But Sanders told the Register the DNC needs to go further and ensure the security of its software system.

"What we need, I think, is coming together in a quiet, sensible way to take a look at all of the possible breaches that may have occurred since the campaign began and understand the consequences of that and most importantly demand that the DNC stop this stuff," he said. "I mean this is just not good."

"We did wrong and we acknowledge it," he said.

"But what the DNC then did in response was quite extraordinary. What they did was cut us off from our own information."