Hillary Clinton Says 'Nobody Likes' Bernie Sanders and Declines to Commit to Backing Him

“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.”

Asked in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, published on Tuesday, if that assessment still held, she said, “Yes, it does.”

And in response to a question about whether she would endorse and campaign for 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.”

The remarks, which Clinton made this month, suggest that echoes of the combative campaign between her and Sanders still reverberate, with less than two weeks to go before the 2020 Iowa caucuses, as many Democrats voice renewed concerns about party unity.

Since having a heart attack this fall, 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.

But this month, a virtual nonaggression pact between Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the other leading progressive in the Democratic race, broke down, in part over a disagreement about whether Sanders told 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.

Asked to weigh in on the Warren-Sanders dispute in the Hollywood Reporter interview, Clinton called it “part of a pattern,” noting that Sanders had criticized her as being “unqualified” during the 2016 primary.

And Clinton, a former senator and secretary of state, spoke of a “culture” around Sanders’ campaign she found troubling.

“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.”

“Not only permitted,” she added, but he “seems to really be very much supporting it.”

In a statement on Tuesday responding to Clinton’s remarks, 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.”

Responding on Twitter to criticism of Clinton’s comments, Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton, suggested that she had not entirely ruled out the possibility of backing Sanders were he to win the Democratic nomination.

“She said ‘yet,’ ” Merrill noted in reference to Clinton’s comment, “I’m not going to go there yet.

“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 Merrill, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Over a grueling primary battle through 2015 and 2016, Clinton and 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, Sanders attacked her ties to wealthy donors and Wall Street banks, including her six-figure speaking fees from Goldman Sachs. Clinton pushed back hard, calling him out for being unable to cite evidence that she was unduly influenced by banks, and portraying him as lacking in policy specifics and nuances.

Sanders won nearly 13 million votes in the 2016 primary presidential contests against 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 Clinton secured the nomination, but eventually endorsed Clinton as the convention neared. Still, many die-hard Sanders supporters remained critical of Clinton’s candidacy through the general election, in online comments and in interviews, and Sanders did not unite them behind her.

Months later, in the general election, Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College majority to Trump.

Clinton also said that she had spoken with Warren, Sen. 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 Sanders was “not part of that.”

“I can’t say all of them,” she said of the candidates she had spoken with.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .