They called him a “doofus.” They said his plans for Wall Street were “naive” and “unworkable,” and derided his supporters as “self-righteous” whiners.
Asked Monday to comment on the various ways Clinton staffers insulted him in hacked emails recently published by WikiLeaks, Bernie Sanders replied: You shoulda seen what we said about them.
“Trust me, if they went into our emails — I suppose which may happen, who knows — I’m sure there would be statements that would be less than flattering about, you know, the Clinton staff,” Sanders told the Washington Post. “That’s what happens in campaigns.”
Still, the Vermont senator did allow that there were certain conspicuous differences between his campaign’s internal deliberations and those published by Julian Assange.
“The way they work is very, very different than the way we work,” Sanders said. “We did not have a committee deciding what kind of jokes I would be telling. In fact, we usually had me scrambling to write my speech on a yellow piece of paper, which I finished three minutes before I would go up there. So, you know, they were much more prepared and much better organized and careful about what they were saying or not saying … The way they do politics is very different.”
With regard to the emails that showed the DNC strategizing with the Clinton campaign while the primary was still ongoing, Sanders was more judgmental but no less unsurprised.
“Was I shocked to find out that the DNC was partial toward Clinton? Not exactly,” Sanders told the paper. “That’s something we knew from day one.”
But while Sanders has little interest in giving Clinton a hard time about things that happened in the past, he’s preparing to become a thorn in her side in the very near future. Per the Post:
In an interview, Sanders said he and other senators have started plotting legislation that would achieve many of the proposals that fueled his insurgent run for president, including a $15 federal minimum wage, tuition-free public college, ending “mass incarceration” and aggressive steps to fight climate change.
The senators, Sanders said, also plan to push for the breakup of “too big to fail” banks and to pressure Clinton to appoint liberals to key Cabinet positions, including treasury secretary. Sanders said he would not stay silent if Clinton nominates the “same old, same old Wall Street guys” to regulatory positions that are important in enacting and overseeing the financial reforms that he supports.
“I will be vigorously in opposition, and I will make that very clear,” Sanders said.
According to Sanders, the other senators he’s informally meeting with are Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Jeff Merkley.
If Democrats retake the Senate, the Vermont senator is in line to become the chair of the upper chamber’s Budget Committee, though he has indicated that he would prefer to take the reins of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Regardless, the senator hopes to use his leadership position, national following, and upcoming book tour to whip the Democratic Party’s left flank into fighting shape — its first battles could come at the very beginning of Clinton’s term, as she seeks to staff her cabinet. In recent days, rumors have spread that Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg is being considered for Treasury secretary.
“I personally believe that a billionaire corporate executive is frankly not the kind of person that working families want to see as secretary of treasury,” Sanders told the Post.
So, Clinton might need to find someone more in tune with the left’s goals — Robert Rubin, perhaps?
