Still seething: Hillary now blames Bernie backers for loss

FPI / February 4, 2020

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Failed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is now blaming her loss to President Donald Trump on the supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders.

"There was no question about who was going to be the nominee," Clinton said in an interview last week. "But unfortunately, you know, his campaign and his principal supporters were just very difficult and really, constantly not just attacking me but my supporters ... it had an impact."

At the Democratic National Convention, supporters of Sanders denounced Clinton and said the nominating process was rigged in the former secretary of state’s favor.

“All the way up until the end, a lot of people highly identified with his campaign were urging people to vote third-party, urging people not to vote,” Clinton said on the Your Primary Playlist podcast.

“That cannot happen again,” Clinton said, alluding to the 2020 election. “I don’t care who the nominee is. I don’t care. As long as it’s somebody who can win, and as long as it’s somebody who understands politics is the art of addition, not subtraction.”

Clinton said in an interview for a forthcoming documentary series that she believes Sanders is not likable enough to be elected president.

"He was in Congress for years," she said. "He had one senator support him. 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."

Axios compiled a list of the 16 other reasons Hillary says she lost:

1. Herself: In her book, Hillary blames her "damn emails," her remarks about putting coal miners out of business, and calling Trump's supporters "deplorable."

2. Russia: "What Putin wanted to do was...influence our election, and he's not exactly fond of strong women, so you add that together and that's pretty much what it means."

3. The DNC: "I'm now the nominee of the Democratic Party. I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party. It was bankrupt...I had to inject money into it - the DNC - to keep it going."

4. Sexism and misogyny: "Sexism and misogyny played a role in the 2016 presidential election. Exhibit A is that the flagrantly sexist candidate won."

5. A Democratic predecessor: "It's really difficult to succeed a president of your own party who has served two terms. That is a historical fact."

6. Bernie Sanders: "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."

7. Wikileaks: "The comey letter, aided to great measure by the Russian WikiLeaks, raised...doubts again. And so even though I won the popular vote, enough people in a few states...were just raising all these questions."

8. Her "traditional" campaign: "I was running a traditional presidential campaign...while Trump was running a reality TV show that expertly and relentlessly stoked Americans' anger and resentment."

9. The debate questions, not being asked "how the candidates planned to create jobs": "I was waiting for the moment when one of the people asking the questions would have said, 'Well, so, exactly how are you going to create more jobs?' "

10. Political journalists: "[Journalists] can't bear to face their own role in helping elect Trump, from providing him free airtime to giving my emails three times more coverage than all the issues affecting people's lives combined."

11. Campaign financing: "You had Citizens United come to its full fruition. So unaccountable money flowing in against me, against other Democrats, in a way that we hadn't seen and then attached to this weaponized information war."

12. President Obama: "I do wonder sometimes about what would have happened if President Obama had made a televised address to the nation...warning that our democracy was under attack. Maybe more Americans would have woken up to the threat in time."

13. TV coverage of the campaign: "When you have a presidential campaign and the total number of minutes on TV news...was 32 minutes, I don't blame voters. Voters are going to hear what they hear...and if they don't get a broad base of information to make judgements on."

14. Low-information voters: "You put yourself in the position of a low-information voter, and all of a sudden your Facebook feed, your Twitter account is saying, 'Oh my gosh, Hillary Clinton is running a child trafficking operation in Washington with John Podesta.' "

15. Women under pressure from men: "They will be under tremendous pressure from fathers and husbands and boyfriends and male employers not to vote for 'the girl.' "

16. James Comey: "The determining factor was the intervention by Comey on October 28...but for that intervention, I would have won."

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