Bill Clinton repeatedly attacked Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at a New Hampshire campaign rally Sunday, framing the Vermont Senator's policy platform as unrealistic, his record as inconsistent, and his supporters as "sexist," profane trolls.
Without using the term "Bernie Bro" directly, Clinton homed in women writers who have "gone online to defend Hillary, to explain why they supported her, [and] have been subject to vicious trolling and attacks that are literally too profane often, not to mention sexist, to repeat."
It's worth noting that Sanders himself acknowledged and criticized the misogynists in the ranks of his supporters: "I have heard about it...It's disgusting. Look, we don't want that crap."
According to reports from the New York Times, Clinton delivered his speech to a crowd of a few hundred gathered at a middle school and strove to paint Sanders as a bad fit for both local residents and the country as a whole. Referring to Sanders's proposed single-payer health care plan, Clinton jabbed “Is it good for America? I don’t think so. Is it good for New Hampshire? I don’t think so.”
"When you're making a revolution you can't too careful with the facts,"Mr. Clinton said, mocking the Sanders campaign's lofty calls for a full-on political revolution.
The direct attacks on Sanders compounded throughout Clinton's 50 minute speech. He described the self-professed socialist's platform as "hermetically sealed" from reality and outrightly dishonest, referencing a mini-scandal last year in which the Bernie Sanders campaign took advantage of a hole in the Democratic National Committee's voter data.
From Bloomberg Politics:
“It was your campaign that made 25 separate inquiries in the mere space of 30 minutes trying to breach information out of computers,” he said. “In private [the Sanders campaign] sent an e-mail complaining [about the Democratic National Committee] leaving the keys in the car, and said, ‘All I did was drive off.’”
In an attempt to dismiss criticism over his wife's ties to Wall Street banks and lobbyist groups, Clinton turned the issue into another rebuke of Sanders' record. "[Hillary]'s getting it from the right, she's getting it from the left," Cllinton said. "If she were really so weak on Wall Street, would there really be two hedge fund managers setting up two super PACs and spending millions of dollars to attack her? No, they'd be attacking her opponent."
That lead to an attempt to paint Sanders, who has also received money from wealthy donors, as a hypocrite. "Anybody who takes money from Goldman Sachs couldn't possibly be president. He may have to tweak that answer a little bit, or we may have to get a write-in candidate."
Responding to Bill Clinton's attack, Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver told Bloomberg "It's unfortunate that President Clinton is choosing to engage in the kind of negative attacks that he is on the eve of the New Hampshire primary."
"Clearly this is a sign that the Clinton campaign is very concerned about the state of the race," Weaver continued. Sanders currently holds a commanding lead over the Hillary Clinton campaign in recent New Hampshire polls.
