CNN commentator and former Obama administration official Van Jones blasted Hillary Clinton's 2016 team on Saturday for being "data dummies" who set a billion dollars "on fire" and did not run a real campaign.
In remarks at "The People's Summit" in Chicago, Jones said progressives had been tricked into fighting among themselves over the wrong issues, The Hill reports. He called it the "stupidest false choice" that there had to be either a focus in the party on the white working class or minorities and racial justice.
"I don't mean to offend anybody, but the people who ran the Hillary Clinton campaign did not spend their money on white workers, and they did not spend their money on people of color. They spent it on themselves," Jones said. "Let's be honest. They took a billion dollars ... and set it on fire, and called it a campaign. That wasn't a campaign!"
.@thehill: Van jones: Clinton campaign set a billion dollars 'on fire' https://t.co/Rp0Msi2YGX #pplsummit pic.twitter.com/Od7nf9x7TF
— RoseAnn DeMoro (@RoseAnnDeMoro) June 10, 2017
"A billion dollars for consultants. A billion dollars for pollsters," he added. "A billion dollars for a data operation, that was run by data dummies who couldn't figure out that maybe people in Michigan needed to be organized."
On Election Night in November, Jones called Donald Trump's victory over Clinton a "whitelash" against Obama policies.
Clinton herself ripped the Democratic Party's data operation last month as "bankrupt" and far inferior to the Republican one.