Former Senator, Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has yet to announce that she is running in the 2020 Democratic primary, but that isn’t keeping her from blasting a current candidate and former rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Clinton slammed her 2016 primary foe as a “career politician” who “nobody likes” (pot, meet kettle) in a forthcoming documentary just two short weeks before the 2020 Iowa caucuses kick primary season into full swing.
At the time this article was published, the hashtag #ILikeBernie was trending No. 2 nationally on Twitter.
“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. “He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney, and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”
Clinton made the comments, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, in a four-part documentary called “Hillary” that chronicles her life, debuting on Hulu on March 6.
Clinton reportedly discusses everything from Sanders, to Monica Lewinsky, to Donald Trump in the documentary.
“This is not an agenda piece,” Hulu documentary chief Belisa Balaban said. “It’s an authored piece of work that looks at a very long slice of personal and political history.”
Sanders recently got into it with rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren after she said he told her a woman couldn’t beat Trump in the 2020 election, which he denies, but Clinton lent credence to Warren’s claim.
“I will say, however, that it’s not only him, it’s the culture around him. It’s his leadership team,” Clinton said. “It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women.”
Clinton, who beat Sanders by nearly 4 million votes in the 2016 primary, said this type of attack appears to be a pattern for Sanders.
“I think that both the press and the public have to really hold everybody running accountable for what they say and what their campaign says and does,” Clinton said. “That’s particularly true with what’s going on right now with the Bernie campaign having gone after Elizabeth with a very personal attack on her. Then this argument about whether or not or when he did or didn’t say that a woman couldn’t be elected, it’s 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 also accuses Republicans of voter suppression in the documentary.
“Whoever gets the nomination, you’ve got to deal with the structural challenges that the Republicans and their allies have put in your way,” she said. “So that means you’ve got to deal with voter suppression, because they’ll steal votes or they’ll prevent votes from happening. They’re now trying to purge voters so that they can try to limit the electorate.”
Clinton also was asked about whether she is still considering entering the 2020 race, which former Trump adviser Steve Bannon predicts she will.
Her answer, however, wasn’t particularly clear but it sounds like she won’t run again.
“I have had so many people (urge me to enter the race). Every day. And I’m grateful for people’s confidence, but I did think it was right for me to step back,” she responded. “I’ll do anything I can to defeat the current incumbent, and to reverse a lot of his damaging policies. Thankfully, I still have a voice and a following.”
