If there was any doubt that the Bernie Sanders campaign’s recent attacks on Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden smacked of 2016, his former primary opponent has erased it. In a new documentary series, Hillary Clinton excoriates Sanders for his campaign’s tactics, telling the Hollywood Reporter that the Vermont senator has “permitted this culture” of campaigning “by insult and attack.” “It’s not only him, it’s the culture around him,” she said. “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.”
In short, she doesn’t think much of Sanders—a presupposition for anyone who watched them interact in 2016, but one that until now was subtext. “In the doc, you’re brutally honest on Sanders: ‘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. He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.’ That assessment still hold?” Clinton was asked. To which she replied, “Yes, it does.”
If anything, Clinton’s interview is likely to exacerbate the rift that sprung up between her and Sanders in the primary four years ago, and which could have similar dangerous implications for 2020. Though Sanders eventually went “all in” for his opponent during the general election, including campaigning on her behalf, not all of his supporters did. Ultimately, 12% of Sanders supporters voted for Donald Trump, and Clinton has made it clear that she views Sanders’ primary attacks—including that she was “unqualified”—as part of the reason she struggled to unite the party. She declined to tell THR whether she’d endorse Sanders, who has surged to second in national polls, were he to become the Democratic nominee. “I’m not going to go there yet,” she said. “We’re still in a very vigorous primary season.”
Clinton’s comments come just after Sanders apologized for an op-ed written by one of his surrogates, Zephyr Teachout, alleging that Biden had “a big corruption problem.” In an interview with CBS, he said, “It is absolutely not my view that Joe Biden is corrupt in any way. And I’m sorry that that op-ed appeared.” When asked in the same interview if he approved of his supporters’ online attacks, he answered, “No I really don’t…we don’t need to demonize people who may disagree with us.” He added that other campaigns engage in the same behavior, and encouraged a civil debate on the issues instead. He has likewise attempted to cool tensions with Warren, marching with her in a Martin Luther King Jr. day parade. His rift with Clinton feels different than his relationship with either Biden or Warren; at this point neither has anything to personally gain from making nice with the other. But Clinton’s comments could stir up the same bitter divisiveness as in years past—the opposite of her professed intention.
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