Former Think Tanker Shaping Foreign Policy for Sanders

Here is more from The Hill:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is taking stronger positions on foreign policy compared to his White House bid four years ago, a shift that is largely credited to a top adviser hired after the 2016 campaign.

Matt Duss is the first person to hold the title of foreign policy adviser to Sanders. He was hired in 2017 in response to criticism that Sanders’s first presidential bid failed to lay out a comprehensive global agenda.

Duss first gained prominence in Washington while working at the Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive think tank founded in 2003 by John Podesta, a longtime political operative who later became campaign chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 White House bid.

At CAP, Duss wrote prolifically on Middle East issues, advocating for U.S. negotiations with Iran and engaging with political Islam in Egypt and Tunisia. Those stances put him at odds with established foreign policy thinking in Washington, especially since CAP was considered influential with the Obama administration’s Middle East policy.

Duss left the think tank in 2014 and became president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. Three years later, he joined Sanders’s staff as foreign policy adviser.

Sen. Sanders has been clashing with the Center for American Progress and its president/CEO Neera Tanden, who was a close adviser to Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign.

Bernie Sanders Blasts Third Way Think Tank

Here is more from MarketWatch:

Bernie Sanders is blasting what he calls “the corporate wing of the Democratic Party,” as centrists are reportedly growing more comfortable with Elizabeth Warren and the Massachusetts senator leads her Vermont counterpart in at least one presidential poll.

Linking to a Politico story titled “Warren emerges as potential compromise nominee,” Sanders tweeted, “The cat is out of the bag. The corporate wing of the Democratic Party is publicly ‘anybody but Bernie.’” Sanders said his agenda including Medicare for All and breaking up big banks “is the real threat to the billionaire class.”

The Politico article quotes a co-founder of centrist think tank Third Way, who is critical of “socialist” narratives in the campaign. “We really like the idea of using government to rectify market failure. And that’s what [Warren’s] about,” said the group’s Matt Bennett. 

Here is what above-mentioned Politico story says about Third Day:

Third Way, which isn’t backing a candidate, famously torpedoed Warren in a widely read 2013 op-ed that exposed the party’s ideological fissures on entitlements. “Nothing would be more disastrous for Democrats” than to adhere to Warren’s brand of economic populism, wrote two of the think tank’s leaders in a piece that drew condemnation from progressives.

Today, however, Third Way is learning to live with Warren even as it embarks on a mission to ensure the Democratic nominee doesn’t stray too far to the left.

Time reported that officials from Third Way were among those at a two-day strategy session about the 2020 elections, debating how to keep Sanders from defining the Democratic Party.

Sanders has also been sparring with other think tanks recently, including the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy for America.

Democratic-Aligned Think Tank Knocks Bernie Sanders for Iran Vote

Here is more from The Intercept:

A mainstream, Democratic Party-aligned foreign policy think tank is knocking Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for voting against new sanctions on Iran in 2017 — though the think tank itself and many members of its board oppose new Iran sanctions.

Sanders has been an outspoken supporter of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and said at the time that he voted against the measure in order to preserve the deal. Sanctions, he argued, would have jeopardized the landmark agreement. But the sanctions were part of a package that also imposed restrictions on Russia and North Korea, which is why the think tank, Foreign Policy for America, supported the package.

Foreign Policy for America’s knock came in a score card that rated politicians on their votes in Congress. The group, also known as FP4A, released its new score card at the end of April, ranking members of Congress from the 115th session on a variety of foreign policy issues. The relatively new advocacy group gives Sanders a positive score in all but two of 13 categories — one of which was the bill that sanctioned Iran and Russia.

Among the members of the Foreign Policy for America’s boards are foreign policy experts who were instrumental in fighting to make the Iran deal happen. Some of those figures have expressed concerns over the choice to penalize Sanders for taking the position he did.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff and a Foreign Policy for America advisory board member said the scoring of the vote that included the Iran sanctions, along with a few other disagreements, had caused him to reconsider his involvement with Foreign Policy for America.

Here is a link to FP4A.  Here is a link to the group's board of directors and advisory board.

The liberal think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) has also been tussling with Sanders.

Bernie Sanders Gets Angry at Liberal Think Tank CAP

Here is more from the New York Times:

Senator Bernie Sanders, in a rare and forceful rebuke by a presidential candidate of an influential party ally, has accused a liberal think tank of undermining Democrats’ chances of taking back the White House in 2020 by “using its resources to smear” him and other contenders pushing progressive policies.

Mr. Sanders’s criticism of the Center for American Progress, delivered on Saturday in a letter obtained by The New York Times, reflects a simmering ideological battle within the Democratic Party and threatens to reopen wounds from the 2016 primary between him and Hillary Clinton’s allies. The letter airs criticisms shared among his supporters: That the think tank, which has close ties to Mrs. Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment, is beholden to corporate donors and has worked to quash a leftward shift in the party led partly by Mr. Sanders.

Mr. Sanders sent the letter days after a website run by the action fund, ThinkProgress, suggested that his attacks on income inequality were hypocritical in light of his growing personal wealth.

The Sanders-CAP feud seems to be escalating.  And here is more from The Hill.

Here is a link to Sanders speaking at CAP's Ideas Conference in 2018 where he thanked CAP for the "important work" it has done over the years.

In 2017, Sanders was not invited to CAP's Ideas Conference.

Update: The New York Times has a major piece on Neera Tanden and CAP, which among other things, quotes her mother, Maya Tanden.  [The Washington Post has a new piece on how her mom became "collateral damage."]  NYT notes that CAP and its sister political arm have a $60 million combined annual budget and 320 staff members.

It says that money to the think tank from the personal foundation of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg surged to $665,000 in 2018 from $15,000 in 2017.  And from 2016 through 2018, CAP accepted nearly $2.5 million from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to fund its National Security and International Policy Initiative.

Among other things, Tanden, whose salary was $397,000 in 2018, reportedly punched Faiz Shakir, the former editor of the think tank's ThinkProgress website.  He is now managing Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.

Can a think tank president be "too online."

Here is a piece about Benjamin Edwards, professional artist and husband of Neera Tanden.

Think Tank Founded by Bernie Sanders' Wife Shutting Down

Here is more from the Associated Press:

The Sanders Institute, a think tank founded by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ wife and son, is shutting down, at least for now, amid criticism that the nonprofit has blurred the lines between family, fundraising and campaigning.

The Vermont-based institute has stopped accepting donations and plans to suspend all operations by the end of May “so there could not even be an appearance of impropriety,” Jane Sanders told The Associated Press.

The unexpected move by the institute’s board of directors comes as Bernie Sanders, a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination, prepares for a wave of intense scrutiny into his political network and his family’s role in its operation.

The institute was founded to promote liberal policies less than two years ago by Sanders’ family with the backing of pro-Sanders celebrities and advocates— though Sanders himself had no formal role. While it operates at a fraction of the scale of the Clinton Foundation, it has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars during its brief existence and has declined to disclose its donors.

Jane Sanders, who also serves as a chief adviser to her husband’s presidential campaign, is not compensated for her role at the institute. Her son, David Driscoll, is paid $100,000 a year as co-founder and executive director. Driscoll previously was an executive for Nike and the Vermont snowboarding firm Burton, but had no previous nonprofit experience, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Here is a link to the Sanders Institute.  Here is a press release from the think tank about its suspension of operations during the 2020 presidential elections.  Here is a press release from the launch of the Sanders Institute.