Two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton Sunday defended her criticism of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and his supporters during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Clinton appeared on CBS's "Sunday Morning" to promote her new memoir What Happened. Host Jane Pauley told Clinton that she watched Sanders defend himself from Clinton's criticism in her new book, and asked her why she would want to open up these old wounds.
"I wanted to tell what happened, and the primary was part of what happened, "Clinton said. "I won a landslide victory in the primary. I know what it's like to win, and I know what it's like to lose, and when I lost to Barack Obama, I immediately turned around. I endorsed him. I worked for him. I convinced my supporters to vote for him. I didn't get the same respect from my primary opponent."
Clinton explicitly criticized Sanders supporters for their "sexist" treatment of her and her supporters.
"A lot of his supporters continue to harass and really go after my supporters all the time, and that feeds in I think to the whole sexism and misogyny part of this campaign," Clinton said. "I had large groups of supporters who had to be private, because if they lifted their head up online, if they were responding on a YouTube comment chain or on Twitter to something: They would just attack, and the attacks were so sexist."
"These are the Bernie bros, so-called," Pauley noted.
Clinton said that those "bros" are still active, which prompted Pauley to ask why Clinton was giving them material, as opposed to letting them concentrate on the administration of President Donald Trump.
"I am concentrating on the Trump administration," Clinton said. "I am proud to be a Democrat. I've been a Democrat for decades. I have supported Democrats. I've worked for Democrats. Bernie is not a Democrat and that's not a slam, that's what he says himself."
"I think a lot of what he churned up in the primary campaign was very hurtful in the general election against me, and I see him doing the same thing," she said. "I see him with his supporters. He doesn't disown the things they say about me."
CBS's "The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert asked Sanders last Thursday about Clinton attacking him in her new book, the Burlington Free Press reported.
"Look, you know, Secretary Clinton ran against the most unpopular candidate in the history of this country, and she lost, and she was upset about it, and I understand that," Sanders told.
"But our job now is really not to backwards," he said. "It is to go forwards."