Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) responded to criticism from Democratic operative James Carville in an interview with CNN host Anderson Cooper on Wednesday’s broadcast of his CNN program. Sanders said Carville is a “political hack” who said “terrible things” about Barack Obama when Hillary Clinton ran against him in the 2008 Democratic primary.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: James Carville, who is obviously a longtime Clinton loyalist, was supporting Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) who obviously dropped out of the primary race last night, he said this week that core Democratic voters aren’t interested in being what he called a “cult.” He said they’re not interested in socialism or a revolution and other things he called foolishness and that, “I don’t know how you win an election at 78 years old screaming in a microphone about the revolution.” I don’t know if he actually was screaming at the time, although it is very possible, knowing James. I want to give you a chance to respond.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT): James, in all due respect, is a political hack who said very terrible things when he was working for [Hillary] Clinton against Barack Obama. I think he said some of the same things.
Look, we are taking on the establishment. This is no secret to anybody. We’re taking on the Wall Street — I guess the former head of Goldman Sachs attacked me yesterday… We’re taking on Wall Street. And the insurance companies don’t like me. And you know what, the pharmaceutical industry, which is charging us ten times more for the same drugs they sell in Canada, they don’t like me either. Nor does the fossil fuel industry because their product happens to be destroying our planet. Nor does the military-industrial complex or the prison-industrial complex. We are taking on Trump, the Republican establishment, Carville, and the Democratic establishment. But at the end of the day, the grassroots movement that we are putting together of young people, of working people, of people of color, want real change.
