Ari Fleischer: People should keep their eye on the 'growing fissure in the Democratic Party'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}People should keep their eye on the “growing fissure in the Democratic Party," according to former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.
Fleischer, a Fox News contributor, made the statement on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning, ahead of the polls opening in Iowa.
Speaking from from Des Moines, Fleischer reacted to former Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly being overheard warning of the very real "possibility of Bernie Sanders taking down the Democratic Party — down whole," according to an NBC News report.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Kerry's reported remarks sent shock waves through an already-fractured liberal constituency bracing for a potentially historic Sanders win in Monday's Iowa Caucuses.
According to the NBC sources, Kerry also remarked that "maybe I'm f---ing deluding myself here," but that he could conceivably launch a run for president now that donors "have the reality of Bernie" surging in the polls.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Immediately after the report broke on Sunday, Kerry, who is in Des Moines as a Joe Biden surrogate, fired off a tweet with an uncharacteristic expletive, as he didn't outright deny that he had been overheard by the reporter saying Sanders posed an existential threat to the Democratic Party.
He did deny saying he could run or was running for president.
"As I told the reporter, I am absolutely not running for President," Kerry wrote on Twitter. "Any report otherwise is f---ing (or categorically) false. I’ve been proud to campaign with my good friend Joe Biden, who is going to win the nomination, beat Trump, and make an outstanding president."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Kerry then quickly deleted the tweet and reposted it without the profanity.
“What's really getting lost because he [Kerry] used an explicative, is the part about Bernie,” Fleischer said on Monday.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“He said Bernie is he going to destroy the Democratic Party, take the party down in whole,” he continued. “That's what people should keep their eye on, this growing fissure in the Democratic Party and if Bernie wins here in Iowa or if Bernie wins in New Hampshire, that fissure grows deep.”
Fleischer added that if the Independent senator from Vermont “opens up 2 and 0, you have mass panic inside the Democratic Party and it's a real grassroots sign of what the future of the Democratic Party is.”
Fleischer also told host Brian Kilmeade that he thinks President Trump wants to run against Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
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“I think this race is going to be [a] close race in November no matter what,” Fleischer told Kilmeade. “That's just the facts of how divided our country is, but the best way to make it less close, is to have Bernie or Warren if you’re Donald Trump.”
Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report.