When the United States, along with France and Britain, bombed Iraq in 1993 after President Saddam Hussein violated United Nations resolutions by raiding Kuwait, Mr. Sanders said he supported those actions.
Mr. Sanders sided with President Bill Clinton in September 1996, when the United States again launched missile strikes at Iraqi military targets after Mr. Hussein sent troops into Kurdish territory. Mr. Hussein “must learn that military aggression will not be tolerated by the international community,” Mr. Sanders said at the time.
A year later, when Iraq expelled American weapons inspectors, Mr. Sanders said that, though he hoped to avoid violence, “the bombing of selected military targets in Iraq certainly remains an option.”
In October 1998, Mr. Sanders voted for the Iraq Liberation Act, a bill that “made the previously unstated policy of promoting regime change in Iraq official, declared policy,” according to the Congressional Research Service. He voted again to reaffirm support for that policy in December of that year, though he spoke out against Mr. Clinton’s ordering of airstrikes on Iraq that month.
what the facts are
Mr. Sanders made an overstated case for his ability to reach across the aisle.
What Was Said
Kathleen Kingsbury, deputy editorial page editor of The New York Times: “I was just going to ask, how do you respond to studies that show that you have one of the worst records in terms of bipartisan deal-making in the legislature right now?”
Mr. Sanders: “Really?”
Ms. Kingsbury: “Make the case for us that you’re a deal maker.”
Mr. Sanders: “Well, first of all, I’m not quite sure — I have not seen that study. You may want to go back to my role in the House where year after year after year, guess which member of Congress got more amendments passed on the floor of the House than any other in a bipartisan way. So I don’t accept that.”
— in an interview with The Times’ editorial board, published on Jan. 13
This is exaggerated. Ms. Kingsbury was referring to an annual index of bipartisanship from the Lugar Center and Georgetown University that assesses how often a lawmaker’s bill is joined by members of an opposing party and how often that lawmaker will join a bill introduced by the opposing party. By this measure, Mr. Sanders was the most partisan senator from 2017 to 2018, and the fourth most partisan out of 250 senators from 1993 to 2018. Since 2007, he has ranked as one of the top 10 most partisan senators every year but one, said Jamie Spitz of the Lugar Center.