Bernie Sanders Responds to Hillary Clinton Criticism
Bernie Sanders has claimed that he did “everything he could” to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 presidential election after she suggested he had “caused lasting damage” to her campaign.
The Vermont senator insisted in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that he had backed Clinton once he was out of the race.
“I worked as hard as I could to see that Hillary Clinton would be elected president,” Sanders said on Sunday, adding that “the nature of politics” meant some of his supporters did not automatically transfer allegiance to Clinton.
“People say not everybody who voted for Bernie ended up voting for Hillary, no kidding! That’s what happens in politics,” he explained.
“That's the nature of politics," Sanders added. "Most people, you know, are not rigidly Democrats or Republicans. They vote where they want.”
Clinton has commented in her new book What Happened that Sanders paved the way for her Republican rival Donald Trump to hit out at her as “crooked Hillary.”
"Some of his supporters, the so-called Bernie Bros, took to harassing my supporters online. It got ugly and more than a little sexist,” she said in an extract reported by The Hill.
"When I finally challenged Bernie during a debate to name a single time I changed a position or a vote because of a financial contribution, he couldn't come up with anything. Nonetheless, his attacks caused lasting damage, making it harder to unify progressives in the general election and paving the way for Trump's 'Crooked Hillary' campaign,” Clinton added.
A survey from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study estimated that around 12% of people who backed Sanders ended up voting for Trump in the presidential election, with Clinton unable to carry over all of Sanders’ supporters despite please from Sanders at the time that people back the Democrat.
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