Ari Rabin-Havt - The Fighting Soul: On the Road with Bernie Sanders

On the Road
with Bernie Sanders

ARI RABIN-HAVT

To Julie, who sacrificed more for the Bernie campaign than anyone knows.

And to the Bernie advance team. You were my family on the road, always accomplishing the impossible with a smile on your face and a cold Diet Snapple Peach Tea waiting.

ARI... GET ME A CHAIR.

At that moment I knew something was very wrong. Bernie Sanders never asked to sit down during a campaign event in the more than three years Id traveled with him. There are, in fact, few things he detests more than sitting down when answering peoples questions. He thinks its disrespectful.

It was Tuesday, October 1, 2019, and Bernie was speaking at a low-dollar fundraiser in a Middle Eastern restaurant a few miles from the Las Vegas Strip. At the end of his stump speech, he asked for a chair. Once seated, Bernie answered only a handful of questions from the attendees, far fewer than normal. He then left the stage, skipping the selfie line that was customary at these events.

The day began with no hint of what was to come. We arrived in Las Vegas and headed to the Healing Garden, a memorial honoring the victims of the deadliest mass shooting in American history, which took place outside the Mandalay Bay Casino. I took photographs of Bernie that afternoon, as I always did. Looking back, they revealed no indication of what was to come. He was genuinely moved by the experience and was somber but friendly with those gathered at the site to mourn.

Before heading to the fundraiser, we stopped at a Starbucks for a cup of coffee. Inside, Bernie and I got into an argument about the next days schedule, which he claimed was too taxing. While it was not uncommon for Bernie to quiz me about the schedule, I should have paid more attention. We frequently argued about scheduling, but Bernieeven though he generally expressed his fatigue from having been on the road constantly for nearly three yearsnever complained about being too tired to campaign. In this case, Bernie told me he was too tired to meet with union members the next morning. Clearly something was off. In the moment, I missed it.

In the SUV leaving the fundraiser, I had no doubt something was very wrong.

Bernie and I were joined in the car by Jesse Cornett, who hours earlier when we arrived in Las Vegas had started working as the campaigns trip director and body man. Jesse was driving, the senator was in the front passenger seat, and I was in the back. A lead car with other staff drove ahead of us down the Strip toward our hotel.

Are you OK, Senator? I said.

Yes, just a little tired, he rumbled from the front seat. Its been a long day.

Bernie then called Jane, his wife of more than thirty years. I overheard him tell her that he was feeling a little sick and was headed to his hotel.

Once the call was over, I asked, Do you want dinner?

No, Ill go right to my room.

This was another sign that something was off. Bernie rarely turned down dinner.

Senator, would you like me to send a doctor to your hotel room?

You can do that? he said, apparently shocked that such a service existed.

Yes, but can we talk about whats wrong so I can tell them? Even inside a complete circle of trust, Bernie remains one of the most guarded people Ive ever been around. I would often have to repeatedly prod him with questions about his well-being.

Ari, Im just tired. I also have this pressure feeling in my lungs. Its not a pain, more like pressure.

Anything else?

Nothing that bad, but over the past week, my left arm has hurt.

I glanced to Jesse, who turned to look over his shoulder at me. That was all it tookhe pulled the car out of the motorcade. As he did so, I told the senator we were going to the nearest urgent care center. I went on Google and found one just a few blocks away in a strip mall, but when we got there, the nurse inside told me they could not take any more patients for the day. Then I suddenly remembered Elite Medical, an urgent care center located behind the MGM Grand. On one of many previous Vegas trips, Id seen it out the window of my hotel room. I gave Jesse the address and he headed toward the facility.

During the five-minute drive, the senators condition seemed to worsen. It was clear that he was extremely uncomfortable. His initial hesitance to seek medical treatment quickly turned to impatience as he repeatedly asked how far we were from the clinic.

When we arrived at Elite Medical, I found a nurse and told her that I had an extremely well-known patient feeling sick enough to require medical attentionasking if he could be swiftly triaged into a private room? The last thing I wanted was Bernie Sanders sitting in a busy waiting area in a Las Vegas urgent care facility. She asked who it was, and when I told her, she replied that she would need to see a drivers license. I ran out to the car and retrieved Bernies license, and we rushed him into the clinic.

Once Bernie was in the exam room, I was handed a stack of admission and insurance paperwork to fill out, and started to make a round of calls that I would repeat over and over again for the next few hours. First Jane; then our campaign manager, Faiz Shakir; then Jeff Weaver, Bernies longest-serving and closest aide, who had been with him on and off since the late 1980s. In between calls, I checked on Bernie. He was sitting up in bed, shirt off, anxious about the results of the CAT scans and other tests the doctors were performing.

I feared the worst. I was the deputy campaign manager of Bernies presidential campaign, and I couldnt help but think about what this would mean for his candidacybut he was also a friend. We had been constant travel companions for three years, sharing thousands of meals and tens of thousands of miles on the road.

Diving into the logistics and little details is how I prevent myself from becoming overwhelmed in challenging situations, so thats what I did. I just kept running through what needed to be done: fill out more paperwork, check on Bernie, talk to the doctor, call Jane again, call Faiz again, call Jeff again, repeat.

Eventually, a doctor told me that Bernie had a blocked artery in his heart and would need to be transported to a nearby hospital for catheterization. I dispatched staff to determine how to arrive at the hospital without making a scene: Jane and I had agreed that Bernies childrenLevi, Heather, Carina, and Daveand grandchildren should hear about what was happening from her, and not from cable news. Unfortunately, it was already after midnight in New England, where most of them lived. I didnt want someone in the hospital snapping a picture on a cell phone that would quickly make news around the world.

Before the ambulance arrived to take the senator from the urgent care clinic to the hospital, the doctor told me I would need to grab Bernies wedding ring and glasses because they could be broken or lost during the procedure. After some pushback, Bernie gave up the wedding ring, but the glasses were a different matter.