ABC News(NEW YORK) — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton levied scathing attacks on Sen. Bernie Sanders in a new Hulu documentary and in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
Clinton, who competed for the 2016 Democratic nomination against Sanders and won, claimed that Sanders is unlikeable and has been relatively unaccomplished during his congressional tenure.
“He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done,” Clinton said in the documentary. “He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”
Clinton would not pledge to support Sanders if he won the 2020 Democratic nomination citing the wide Democratic field and concerns about Sanders’ online supporters, calling them “Bernie Bros.”
“I’m not going to go there yet. We’re still in a very vigorous primary season,” Clinton said. “I will say, however, that it’s not only him, it’s the culture around him. It’s his leadership team. It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women. And I really hope people are paying attention to that because it should be worrisome that he has permitted this culture — not only permitted, [he] seems to really be very much supporting it.”
When asked about Clinton’s comments, Sanders responded, “On a good day, my wife likes me, so let’s clear the air on that one” Sanders said jokingly when asked about Clinton’s comments. “Look, today, right now I’m dealing with impeachment.”
“Secretary Clinton is entitled to her point of view, but my job today is to focus on the impeachment trial. My job today is to put together a team to defeat the most dangerous president in the history of the United States of America,” Sanders added.
Asked further why he thought Clinton was still talking about 2016, Sanders said: “That is a good question. Ask her.”
The Sanders campaign echoed a similar sentiment in a statement released Tuesday.
“My focus today is on a monumental moment in American history: the impeachment trial of Donald trump,” statement from the senator read. “Together, we are going to go forward and defeat the most dangerous president in American history.”
Sanders, in a CBS interview Monday, said he didn’t agree with the social media attacks waged by his supporters. Instead, he urged them to “engage in civil discourse.”
In the interview, Clinton also weighs in on the controversy surrounding a 2018 private meeting between Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others. Reports from CNN, claimed Sanders disagreed with her that a woman could win in 2020 against President Donald Trump. Warren confirmed the report and Sanders vehemently denied them.
Clinton said the argument is “part of a pattern.”
“If it were a one-off, you might say, ‘OK, fine.’ But he said I was unqualified. I had a lot more experience than he did, and got a lot more done than he had, but that was his attack on me,” Clinton said. “I just think people need to pay attention because we want, hopefully, to elect a president who’s going to try to bring us together, and not either turn a blind eye, or actually reward the kind of insulting, attacking, demeaning, degrading behavior that we’ve seen from this current administration.”
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