Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who ran for president seeking the Democratic Party's nomination in 2016, apologized Wednesday to women who claimed they were sexually harassed during their time at his campaign.
Talking in an interview to CNN, Sanders said he didn't know about the sexual harassment and pay disparity allegations at the time.
Sanders apologized to "any woman who feels like she was not treated appropriately."
When the host asked if he was aware of the complaints at the time they were made, Sander replied that he was "little bit busy running around the country trying to make the case [to be elected as president]."
"I am not going to sit here and tell you that we did everything right in terms of human resources, in terms of addressing the needs that I'm hearing from now: that women felt they were disrespected, that there was sexual harassment which was not dealt with as effectively as possible," Sanders said on CNN.
"We put forward the strongest set of principles in terms of mandatory training, in terms of women, if they felt harassed, having an independent firm that they can go to," Sanders said. "And I think that that's kind of the gold standard of what we should be doing."
During 2016 US presidential election, Sanders, who has served as an independent in the Senate, ran for president as a Democrat, but eventually lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton, who lost the presidency to Republican Donald Trump.
Democratic National Committee emails published by WikiLeaks showed that the committee sought to weaken Sanders' campaign as part of a coordinated effort with the Clinton campaign. 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has said the DNC "rigged" the primary against Sanders to aid Clinton's prospects.
