Clinton: Lack of respect from Sanders and his supporters ‘hurt’

Hillary Clinton says that Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) reluctance to concede the Democratic presidential nomination to her was hurtful and “disrespectful.”

In an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America,” Clinton recalled how Sanders “just kept going” during the Democratic primaries, despite the fact that she had emerged “by March and April” as the clear nominee. 

“I had such a different experience in ’08,” she said, referring to her 2008 race against then-candidate Barack Obama. “Once it was over, it was over. And I quickly endorsed President Obama. I worked really hard to get him elected.

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“I didn’t get anything like that respect from Sanders and his supporters,” she added. “And it hurt, you know, to have basically captured the nomination, ending up with more than 4 million votes than he had. And he dragged it out.”

Clinton went on “Pod Save America,” a political talk show run by former Obama staffers, to promote her campaign memoir. Clinton’s new book, “What Happened,” was released on Tuesday.

Sanders eventually conceded the nomination to Clinton and endorsed her two weeks before the start of the Democratic National Convention.

Clinton attributed Sanders’s decision to continue his campaign against her to the fact that he’s not a Democrat. 

“Why would we be surprised? He’s not a Democrat,” she said. “And that’s not a slam on him — that is just a repetition of what he says about himself.”

Sanders has described himself as a democratic socialist, though he caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate.

In her book, Clinton argues that Sanders’s attacks against her during the primaries caused lasting damage to her campaign and made it harder for her to win over his supporters for the general election.