Bernie Sanders Responds To Hillary Clinton Blaming Him For Losing Presidential Election In Her New Book

Hillary Clinton is releasing a new book, provocatively titled What Happened, and in it points the finger at Bernie Sanders and blames him in part for the loss of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Excerpts from Clinton’s new book have been shared widely on social media and in it she suggests that because she and Sanders agreed on so many issues, she feels that he ended up resorting to “innuendo and impugning my character” when it came to last year’s election.

Hillary Clinton’s accusations against Bernie Sanders have created vast ripples in the political world, with pundits and voters alike baffled that she would choose to malign Sanders’ character by hinting that he helped to create the huge political backlash she faced during her election campaign.

“His attacks caused lasting damage, making it harder to unify progressives in the general election and paving the way for Trump’s ‘Crooked Hillary’ campaign.”

While Hillary did praise Bernie in her new book by noting that he had engaged many young, new voters, she also claims that his true intention was never actually to put a Democrat in the White House, but to make sure that he disrupted the whole Democratic Party instead, according to USA Today.

“He didn’t get into the race to make sure a Democrat won the White House, he got in to disrupt the Democratic Party.”

Even Barack Obama urged Hillary Clinton to not blame Bernie Sanders for the inherent problems of the Democratic Party, as if she did, she would only be alienating voters, to which Clinton responded that she felt like she was “in a straitjacket.”

However, Bernie Sanders is not particularly open to Hillary’s criticism, especially after he went out of his way to tell voters to get out and vote for her so that Trump wouldn’t get into office. On Thursday night, Sanders made an appearance on the Late Show and told Stephen Colbert that he felt it was more than a little “silly to keep talking about 2016.”

Bernie Sanders hits back at Hillary Clinton over swipes in new book: It’s “silly” to keep talking about 2016 https://t.co/fQpIoPEZmlpic.twitter.com/4h9Z2vIPs5

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) September 8, 2017

Bernie Sanders acknowledged Hillary Clinton’s anguish in losing the election, but spoke of how important it was for her to stop looking at the past and concentrate on the future instead, as Huffington Post reported.

“Look, 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. But our job is really not to go backwards. It is to go forwards.”

As Clinton will be appearing on Stephen Colbert’s show on September 19, one week after her book What Happened is released, Sanders asked Colbert to speak with her about putting her energy into fighting Trump rather than attacking him and others, according to The Hill.

“Let’s get together, take on Trump’s desire to divide us up, let’s go forward with the progressive agenda. Ask her if she’ll do that.”

It is unclear if Hillary Clinton attacks Bernie Sanders further in her new book aside from what has been shown so far in the media, but Bernie’s sage advice is to not alienate voters by obsessing over the past.

[Featured Image by Joe Raedl/Getty Images]