Sanders Defends Clinton Over Leaked Fundraiser Audio: ‘I Agree With Her’ (VIDEO)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. wave to supporters during a rally in Portsmouth, N.H., Tuesday, July 12, 2016, where Sanders endorsed Clinton for president. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and his staffers have dismissed the uproar over audio leaked from a February Hillary Clinton fundraiser in which the Democratic nominee describes young supporters of the Vermont senator as frustrated and struggling to find work.

“Well, I agree with her, what she is saying,” Sanders said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There are young people who went deeply into debt, worked very hard to get a good education, and yet get out of school and can’t get decent jobs … and are living in their parents’ basements. There is a point there.”

Sanders said he was “of course” bothered by Clinton’s claim that he made “false promises” to his supporters during the 2016 campaign, but insisted he still wanted them to vote for her.

Sanders made the same case on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, saying Clinton was “absolutely correct” about the challenges young Americans are facing.


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In the recording from the February event, which leaked on Sept. 27, Clinton referred to some Sanders supporters as “new to politics completely” and stuck “living in their parents’ basement.”

“They feel they got their education and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves,” she said. “And they don’t see much of a future.”

Donald Trump has tried to make political hay over the recording, saying Clinton’s remarks reveal her condescension to Sanders’ supporters.

On Twitter and on the stump on Saturday, Trump said the audio was proof that Clinton did not represent their interests.

Yet Trump’s effort to pin the former of secretary of state with a nine-sentence prepared statement at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday night was derailed when the candidate broke off into a stream of angry tangents. The Washington Post reported that Trump spent the bulk of the rally—which came the night that the New York Times published a story revealing that the real estate mogul may avoiding paying any federal income tax for 18 years—railing about his “bum mic” at the first presidential debate and mocking Clinton as “crazy” and unfaithful to her husband.

Trump also attacked Sanders during the rally in Manheim, saying he had “much bigger crowds than Bernie Sanders ever had” and labeling him “crazy” as well.

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Notable Replies

  1. and of course the MSM just tells us the headline …and shows Douchebag Donald repeating it …
    Because horserace SIGH

  2. I have to be honest I’m at a loss to see where/how Clinton made some horrible remark. Sanders understood exactly what Clinton was saying and to be honest, I don’t think anything she said was factually wrong.

    A lot of Sanders young supporters are new to politics, that was a huge argument from Sanders people as to why he was the better candidate, he was bringing in new voters. A lot of Sanders young supporters bought into the idea of a political revolution, where Sanders election as President would automatically transform the political system for the better. A lot of Sanders supporters are straight out of college or in college and facing mountains of dept in Student Loans and also feel they’re entitled or were promised better jobs than are currently available to them.

    I get why the right is trying to make it a thing. I get why the Extreme Left and MSM wants it to be a thing, I just don’t think it is a thing.

    I’m glad Sanders laid it all out because he got her message correctly and yeah she took a pot shot at Sanders but, they were both doing it during the Primary.

  3. This is HO and the media’s Hail Mary attempt to throw a Romney 47% into the mix and get the public, and the Media, away from talking about what a poor debater Donald Trump is, and how unstable Donald Trump is to be holding onto his petulant rage over his treatment of Alicia Machado coming out to public scrutiny.

    Expect more increasingly desperate and low road Hail Mary passes from HO, his children, his campaign folks and hatchet people.

  4. indeed, talking about lack of jobs, quality of jobs, being “stuck” is not at all derogatory… perhaps the Repubs. think this is a “47%” moment…

  5. The only thing that’s a problem here is the optics of saying they’re living in their parents’ “basement”. Had she said they live with their parents there would have been nothing, but we’ve been demonizing people living in the basement as pimple-faced millennial Internet trolls for so long that it just sounds bad to people even when it’s said sympathetically.

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