Hillary Clinton gives an unvarnished view of Bernie Sanders, her 2016 Democratic presidential primary opponent, in a new documentary, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“He was in Congress for years,” she says of Sanders in the Hulu documentary due to air in March, according to an interview with THR. “He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”
The documentary is set to premiere this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival, before streaming on Hulu from March 6.
When THR asked Clinton whether her criticism still stands, Clinton said, “Yes, it does.”
A spokesperson for Sanders, now one of the 2020 Democratic presidential front-runners, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Clinton’s remarks.
In the interview, Clinton declined to say whether she would endorse and campaign for Sanders if he becomes the nominee. Instead, she went on to criticise “the culture around him,” including the sexist verbal attacks that his supporters, often referred to as “Bernie Bros,” have launched on social media in the past. Sanders condemned their comments at the time.
She also took aim at Sanders allegedly telling Elizabeth Warren during a 2018 meeting that he didn’t believe a woman could defeat President Donald Trump in 2020. Sanders has denied the exchange ever happened.
“Well, number one, I think [that sentiment] is untrue, which we should all say loudly. I mean, I did get more votes both in the primary, by about 4 million, and in the general election, by about 3 million,” Clinton said, calling the alleged comments “a very personal attack on [Warren].”
Directed by Oscar nominee Nanette Burstein, the four-hour documentary series, which Clinton described as telling a “larger story about women,” reportedly makes gender in politics a central focus. In the interview, Clinton told THR she believes media coverage of the 2020 race has been “reverting back to stereotypes, and many of those are highly genderised.”
She revealed that she has spoken to most of the other 2020 contenders, including two of the remaining women in the race: Warren and Amy Klobuchar.
“I always say [to the female candidates], ‘Look, you can run the best campaign, but you’re going to have to be even better than your best campaign to overcome some of the unfairness that will be directed at you as a woman,’ Clinton said.
Clinton — who struggled with how pointedly she should have attacked Trump in 2016, given the double standard often applied to women when they publicly express anger — said that bind still exists for the women in the 2020 race.
“It’s hard still. Very hard,” Clinton said, though she praised Warren’s retort to Sanders at the Democratic presidential debate earlier this month, when Warren said, “The only people on this stage who have won every one of their races are Amy and me.”
“I thought that was clever. Some people loved it, some hated it,” Clinton said.
“It’s really hard ever to score 100 when you’re trying to navigate gender expectations and barriers,” she added. “Sometimes you really do want to let loose, and then you think, ‘Oh, great, they’ll say I can’t take it, so I’m getting angry.’ Or they’ll say that I’m mad, and that that’s not a very attractive look. So, it’s a constant evaluation about, how can I best convey who I am, what I believe, what I stand for and what I’m willing to fight for?”
