Sen. Bernard Sanders has repeatedly said he won’t make character attacks on Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton in his quest for the White House, and famously stood up for her in the first debate, saying Americans were “sick and tired” of hearing about her email scandal.
Offstage, however, Mr. Sanders has been taking his shots, and his barbs have gotten sharper.
In an interview with Yahoo News’ Katie Couric, the Vermont senator called it “silly and absurd” for Mrs. Clinton to invoke Sept. 11 to defend her Wall Street connections — as she did in Saturday night’s debate. Mrs. Clinton has since apologized for the remarks.
“The issue was what impact did the fact that she has received huge amounts of funding from Wall Street have on her attitude toward Wall Street,” Mr. Sanders told Ms. Couric. “Clearly, as she’s recognized today, that had nothing to do with 9/11.
“The fact is, Hillary Clinton … as I recall, most of her leading campaign contributors have in fact come from Wall Street. In this campaign, she has received more money from the pharmaceutical industry than any candidate, Democrat or Republican. That’s the fact, and I suspect she was trying to deflect attention away from that fact,” Mr. Sanders said.
In a statement released by the senator’s campaign Tuesday, Mr. Sanders linked Mrs. Clinton’s acceptance of pharmaceutical campaign donations as the reason why she’s flip-flopped on supporting universal health care. Mrs. Clinton has defended the Affordable Care Act, while Mr. Sanders would like to move to a single-payer system, something Mrs. Clinton had advocated before Obamacare was passed.
“It’s hard to understand how someone who claims to have been a supporter of universal health insurance for years is suddenly moving to the right and attacking universal health care. Or maybe it’s not: The Clinton campaign received far more money from the drug and medical device industries than any other presidential candidate in either party during the first six months of the campaign, according to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. She accepted $164,315 during that period,” the statement reads.
In a separate interview Sunday with The Des Moines Register, Mr. Sanders came out swinging against Mrs. Clinton’s policy proposals while defending his own.
He argued Mrs. Clinton hadn’t offered any concrete plans despite making paid family medical leave a cornerstone of her campaign.
“If you are a candidate whose major contributors over your political life in fact are Wall Street, are you going to be prepared to do what has to be done to protect the taxpayers of this country?” he told The Register.
Mr. Sanders said he’ll be sharpening his contrasts with Mrs. Clinton on the issues, but still promised not to make them personal.
“To contrast your ideas is not to make character attacks on somebody else. It’s that we have differences of opinion,” Mr. Sanders told The Register. “I like Hillary Clinton. We have differences of opinion.”
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