Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders lambasted primary frontrunner Hillary Clinton on Wednesday for changing her position on several policy issues during the campaign as well as how she defines herself politically to the public.
Sanders appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe to discuss a range of topics, including Clinton, and he bashed the former secretary of state for being inconsistent throughout her political career.
"You can't be a moderate, you can't be a progressive. You can't be for the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] and against the TPP, for the Keystone pipeline, against the Keystone pipeline," Sanders said in reference to Clinton, responding to a question posed by host Joe Scarborough about the Democratic frontrunner's "flip-flops."
"What do you think when you hear her say she has been fighting for progressive causes for all of these years?" Scarborough asked Sanders. "When we have seen her flip-flop on Keystone, we've seen her flip-flop on same-sex marriage, we've seen her flip-flop on financial reform, we've seen her flip-flop on trade. We've seen her flip-flop, and this is just in the past year or two ... I'm just telling the truth. What are your thoughts when she's putting herself out as a long-standing progressive champion?"
"Except when she defines herself, as she did a few months ago, as a moderate," Sanders said, before echoing the specific examples that Scarborough referenced.
Clinton has switched her position on a range of issues during the ongoing presidential campaign, in an effort to appeal to the liberal Democratic base and counter Sanders' popularity on the political left.
The Senator from Vermont is a self-declared Socialist who has also criticized Clinton for being too close to Wall Street while largely campaigning to address income inequality by lessening the gap between the rich and poor and promising to break up the country's largest banks.
While Sanders remains behind Clinton by a wide margin in national polls, he is optimistic and thinks his campaign has the momentum going forward.
"I think her [Clinton's] message is not an accurate one," Sanders said. "The message is that Hillary Clinton is the most electable Democrat. I would just refer you to a recent Quinnipiac poll, which had us beating Donald Trump by almost twice the margin that she was beating Trump. Other polls have shown similar type findings."
Sanders also believes he has greater appeal to the average voter than Clinton in this campaign cycle.
"I think any objective person would assess that the new energy in this campaign from young people, from working-class people, is with our campaign, not Secretary Clinton's campaign."