From helping Hillary Clinton court the coveted Millennial vote to raising money for Democratic congressional candidates, former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has often expressed a desire to help political allies and enemies alike this election year. Especially when he and Clinton were competing for the Democratic nomination, as evidenced by his famous “damn emails” line at CNN’s Democratic Presidential Debate last October. On Monday, the Vermont senator proved this yet again by defending Clinton against the ongoing Wikileaks email hack with a bit of self-deprecation.
According to the Washington Post, Sanders told an interviewer, “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.” He then added, “That’s what happens in campaigns.” His statements reflected those made by former Republican White House hopeful Marco Rubio, who warned those wanting “to capitalize politically on these leaks” they would be next.
However, Sanders didn’t spend the entire interview defending Clinton and condemning Wikileaks. He also commented on the leaked emails’ alleged content and, in a way, cast the faintest amount of shade toward Clinton, her campaign and the Democratic National Committee for their supposed collusion during the primaries:
“We said that the Clinton campaign was heavily influencing what the DNC was doing regarding debates, and that’s exactly what had been happening. None of that is a shock to me. Was I shocked to find out that the DNC was partial toward Clinton? Not exactly. That’s something we knew from day one.”
Between this and previous reports staffers were abandoning Sanders’s post-campaign organization in droves, it looks like that Sanders-Trump edition of Family Feud may actually happen.
(Via the Washington Post)
