This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/us/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders.html

The article has changed 12 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 8 Version 9
Hillary Clinton Says ‘Nobody Likes’ Bernie Sanders and Declines to Commit to Backing Him ‘Nobody Likes Him’: Hillary Clinton Risks a Party Split Over Bernie Sanders
(about 2 hours later)
Hillary Clinton, who battled with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont for months in a 2016 Democratic primary that sometimes turned contentious, ripped into her former campaign rival in a new documentary series and declined to say if she would endorse and campaign for him if he were to win the presidential nomination this time around. WASHINGTON — For three years, Hillary Clinton has watched the Democratic Party search for a path forward in the Trump era.
“He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him,” she said in a forthcoming four-part series, set to have its premiere at Sundance and air on Hulu beginning March 6. “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.” She’s watched as liberals and moderates clashed on how best to fight President Trump and a White House that was almost hers. She’s watched as some voters questioned the “electability” of the six women running for president, doubts that she once faced. She’s watched as Senator Bernie Sanders has risen, after his withering opposition to her in the 2016 presidential primary, to become the dominant liberal force in the 2020 race.
Asked in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, published on Tuesday, if that assessment still held, she said, “Yes, it does.” And she’d largely refrained from weighing in — until Tuesday morning, when The Hollywood Reporter published an interview with Mrs. Clinton promoting a new documentary about her that will premiere on Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival. In the documentary, she rips into Mr. Sanders and declines to say if she would endorse him and campaign on his behalf if he were to win the Democratic nomination.
And in response to a question about whether she would endorse and campaign for Mr. Sanders if he were to get the nomination, she said: “I’m not going to go there yet. We’re still in a very vigorous primary season.” “Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician,” she said. “It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.” Asked by The Reporter recently if that assessment still held, she replied, “Yes, it does.”
The remarks, which Mrs. Clinton made this month, suggest that echoes of the combative campaign between her and Mr. Sanders still reverberate, with less than two weeks to go before the 2020 Iowa caucuses, as many Democrats voice renewed concerns about party unity. Her remarks ricocheted across the Democratic Party on Tuesday, threatening to reopen the barely healed wounds of the 2016 primary, a race that quickly turned from a near-coronation of Mrs. Clinton as the party’s first female nominee into a bitter battle that exposed a deep ideological rift among Democrats.
Since having a heart attack this fall, Mr. Sanders has gained high-profile endorsements, shown increased strength in the polls and finds himself locked in a tight four-way race to win Iowa. That split over what direction the party should take is now a major issue in the current primary, with Mr. Sanders arguing for the full-throated leftist agenda and others counseling moderation. At the same time, he is engaged in a standoff with his liberal ally in the 2020 race, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, that has divided some on the left, over her accusation that he told her in 2018 that a woman could not win the presidency.
But this month, a virtual nonaggression pact between Mr. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the other leading progressive in the Democratic race, broke down, in part over a disagreement about whether Mr. Sanders told Ms. Warren that he did not believe a woman could be elected president. In recent days, both candidates have sought to de-escalate the tension, but the feud has been disconcerting to liberal activists and some of their supporters. Mr. Sanders has denied that remark. Mrs. Clinton, for her part, seized on it and said it was “part of a pattern,” noting that he said in 2016 that Mrs. Clinton was unqualified to be president.
Asked to weigh in on the Warren-Sanders dispute in the Hollywood Reporter interview, Mrs. Clinton called it “part of a pattern,” noting that Mr. Sanders had criticized her as being “unqualified” during the 2016 primary. (In making that claim, Mr. Sanders at the time cited Mrs. Clinton’s vote for the war in Iraq, her fund-raising methods and her support for trade agreements.) Some Democrats fear that Mrs. Clinton is adding fuel to the tensions within the party, whose leaders have spent years trying to overcome the lingering hostilities of the 2016 campaign, hoping to unify Democrats around the singular mission of defeating Mr. Trump.
And Mrs. Clinton, a former senator and secretary of state, spoke of a “culture” around Mr. Sanders’s campaign she found troubling. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate for Democrats to be criticizing other Democrats, especially with personal attacks like that,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, who supported both of Mrs. Clinton’s primary bids. “I understand why there can be bitterness out there. I believe we just need to leave that behind us.”
“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,” she said. “And I really hope people are paying attention to that because it should be worrisome that he has permitted this culture.” Representatives of both Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton moved quickly to try to quell the furor on Tuesday. Fresh off recent battles with not only Ms. Warren but also former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Sanders’s campaign was eager to avoid another fight that would distract from his closing message less than two weeks before the Iowa presidential caucuses. Mr. Sanders apologized on Monday to Mr. Biden after a Sanders campaign surrogate wrote an opinion article accusing the former vice president of having “a big corruption problem.”
“Not only permitted,” she added, but he “seems to really be very much supporting it.” Speaking to reporters on Tuesday in Washington, Mr. Sanders said: “Secretary Clinton is entitled to her point of view. My job today is to focus on the impeachment trial.”
In a statement responding to Mrs. Clinton’s remarks, Mr. Sanders said: “My focus today is on a monumental moment in American history: the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Together, we are going to go forward and defeat the most dangerous president in American history.” When asked for his response to Mrs. Clinton’s assertion that no one liked him, he joked that “on a good day, my wife likes me, so let’s clear the air on that one.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday in Washington, Mr. Sanders added, “Secretary Clinton is entitled to her point of view.” When asked for his response to Mrs. Clinton’s assertion that no one liked him, he joked that “on a good day, my wife likes me so let’s clear the air on that one.” Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, urged Democrats to “give her the benefit of the doubt for once,” pointing out her repeated promises to remain neutral in the primary campaign.
Responding on Twitter to criticism of Mrs. Clinton’s comments, Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, suggested that she had not entirely ruled out the possibility of backing Mr. Sanders were he to win the Democratic nomination. Those who have spoken to Mrs. Clinton recently say she has every intention of supporting the Democratic nominee — even if Mr. Sanders ends up winning the primary. Still, even some longtime allies were shocked that she voiced such criticisms of Mr. Sanders in an election year, so close to the start of primary voting.
“She said ‘yet,’” Mr. Merrill noted in reference to Mrs. Clinton’s comment, “I’m not going to go there yet.” They were far less surprised by the content of her remarks.
“She has repeatedly made clear that she isn’t committing to any candidate as the primary plays out, and more than anyone in the world she has shown time and again that she puts Democrats & our democracy above all else,” added Mr. Merrill, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Sanders’s denial in his dispute with Ms. Warren over whether he had told her a woman could not defeat Mr. Trump infuriated Mrs. Clinton, according to people close to her. Mr. Sanders’s subsequent refusal to chastise his supporters for attacking Ms. Warren and her team online only added to her concern.
Over a grueling primary battle through 2015 and 2016, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders clashed over policy differences over trade, the war in Iraq and other issues, and occasionally veered into more personal territory. On the campaign trail and in televised debates, Mr. Sanders attacked her ties to wealthy donors and Wall Street banks, including her six-figure speaking fees from Goldman Sachs. Mrs. Clinton pushed back hard, saying he was unable to cite evidence that she was unduly influenced by banks and portraying him as lacking in policy specifics and nuances. “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,” Mrs. Clinton told The Reporter. “It should be worrisome that he has permitted this culture — not only permitted, seems to really be very much supporting it.”
Mr. Sanders won nearly 13 million votes in the 2016 primary presidential contests against Mrs. Clinton, and beat her in key states like Michigan, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. He also won more than 1,800 Democratic delegates. He initially refused to end his campaign in June 2016 after Mrs. Clinton earned enough delegates to secure the nomination, but eventually endorsed her as the convention neared. People close to Mrs. Clinton say she has grown worried that attacks from Mr. Sanders’s campaign could hurt the future Democratic nominee in much the same way that she believes they did lasting damage to her. She worries he will not drop out of the race even if it becomes clear he cannot win the nomination, a situation that could exacerbate divisions in the party.
Mr. Sanders went on to campaign with Mrs. Clinton, but many die-hard Sanders supporters remained critical of her candidacy through the general election, in online comments and in interviews, and Mr. Sanders did not unite them behind her. Mrs. Clinton also does not believe Mr. Sanders could beat Mr. Trump, telling friends for months that he has never sustained harsh attacks from fellow Democrats on his record and self-described democratic socialism.
Months later, in the general election, Mrs. Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College majority to Mr. Trump. Since Mr. Sanders endorsed Mrs. Clinton in July 2016, the acrimony between the two camps has lingered. Mrs. Clinton and her former aides maintain that his endorsement came too late and was too lukewarm to truly unify the party. Some supporters of Mr. Sanders still argue that the Democratic National Committee “rigged” the rules to help her secure the nomination.
Mrs. Clinton also said that she had spoken with Ms. Warren, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and “practically everybody” who is seeking the Democratic nomination. But according to a transcript of the Hollywood Reporter interview, she nodded when the questioner suggested that Mr. Sanders was “not part of that.” Unlike nearly all of the other two dozen Democratic candidates this primary cycle, Mr. Sanders did not call Mrs. Clinton before he entered the race.
“I can’t say all of them,” she said of the candidates she had spoken with. Jane Kleeb, the Nebraska Democratic Party chairwoman, said that she understood Mrs. Clinton’s concerns but that voicing frustrations was unproductive for the party.
Sydney Ember contributed reporting. “She has obviously a very different vantage than any of us ever will. She worked her entire career and she was taken down by forces out of her control,” said Ms. Kleeb, who backed Mr. Sanders in the 2016 primary but recalled crying as she listened to Mrs. Clinton’s audiobook about her campaign. “I understand why she’s frustrated with Senator Sanders but I also think this is time to go after Trump.”
Though Mrs. Clinton’s presidential defeat still weighs heavily on her, friends say she is busy with a variety of other projects, traveling to accept awards and honorary degrees. An avid theatergoer, she attends Broadway shows and has been spotted at several concerts, including Fleetwood Mac, Earth Wind and Fire and Billy Joel. She spends a lot of time with her three grandchildren and, this fall, released a book profiling “gutsy women” with her daughter, Chelsea.
Still, at times, Mrs. Clinton’s pique about 2016 has come out.
Those comments have often had the opposite effect of what Mrs. Clinton intended. After she described Representative Tulsi Gabbard as a “favorite of the Russians” on a podcast, the Hawaii congresswoman parlayed the remarks into weeks of campaign donations and media attention.
Among some in Mr. Sanders’s campaign, there was hope that Mrs. Clinton’s remarks would lead to a similar bump in fund-raising.
On Twitter, the hashtag #ILikeBernie became a top trending topic. Many supporters pounced on Mrs. Clinton’s remarks, arguing that she remained out of touch with the working-class Americans who back Mr. Sanders.
“No apologies, no backing down, the scorn and hatred that all of official Washington D.C. and the Democratic Party has for him and his supporters is his closing case,” Will Menaker, a host of the progressive podcast Chapo Trap House, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “They are corrupt and evil, they hate him and they hate you because you are not.”
Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of the progressive group Justice Democrats, called Mrs. Clinton’s statement “unacceptable, out of touch and dangerous.”
Though some of his supporters and staff members have been itching for confrontation, Mr. Sanders has rejected recent traps to get him to relitigate 2016. Last week, after Mr. Trump tried to goad Mr. Sanders by saying the Democratic Party was rigging the 2020 election against him again, he refused to bite and instead issued a statement attacking Mr. Trump.
Yet the furor over Mrs. Clinton’s remarks is unlikely to die down anytime soon, as she continues promoting the new documentary, “Hillary,” which is set to be released on Hulu a few days after Super Tuesday.
“She obviously has deeply held feelings about what happened in 2016 and is hellbent on stopping Sanders now,” said David Axelrod, who served as a top strategist on Barack Obama’s primary bid against Mrs. Clinton in 2008. “If the goal of Democrats is to win, I’m not sure that interventions like this are likely to help unify and mobilize all elements of the party in the fall. She, of all people, should know that.”
Lisa Lerer reported from Washington, and Sydney Ember from Des Moines. Matt Stevens contributed reporting from New York.