The broad consensus among political reporters & operatives seems to be that Warren's camp did not in fact intentionally leak details of the meeting, but that it was more likely somebody else either with an axe to grind or who'd benefit from the resulting fracas. /1
Warren could've blunted the story and said her memory is what it is but she takes her friend at his word that he didn't mean it that way. Sanders could've de-escalated by saying he was sorry if he gave off the wrong impression and only meant that Trump will exploit sexism. But
my guess is that we will eventually find out where it came from, and it will make more sense than Warren doing it intentionally.
If true, none of this would absolve Warren of escalating it unnecessarily, or refusing to shake Sanders' outstretched hand in public, which had the predictable effect of lengthening this.
A key fact that people are overlooking is that in journalism circles this rumor had been kicking around for some time. So it's extremely unlikely it just landed in @mj_lee's lap all packaged up. More likely is she was working it a long time and able to nail it down bc...
Bernie's surge motivated people who had knowledge of it to finally confirm it. But assuming it was Warren's team is just an assumption.
I'm also not remotely convinced that @ErinBurnett is claiming that she knows MJ's sources. She seemed to be making her own assessment, nothing more.
@ErinBurnett And fwiw a CNN source who would know tells me Erin didn’t know MJs sources and wouldn’t have said anything about it if she did
