Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is downplaying the attacks by Hillary Clinton on his gun policies, arguing that the Clinton campaign once similarly attacked President Obama.
“Today she’s attacking Bernie on guns. Eight years ago she attacked Barack Obama on guns,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver wrote on the presidential candidate’s official Twitter account.
{mosads}Attached to the tweet was a video of then-Sen. Barack Obama speaking on the campaign trail in 2008, when he was facing Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary.
In the video, Obama discusses Clinton’s attacks on his gun policies, accusing her of “playing politics.”
The campaign also tweeted a photo of a Clinton postcard, which it says is from 2007, accusing Obama of shifting his stance on gun control.
The advertisement, which reads: “Where does Obama really stand on guns?” was released shortly after Obama’s controversial remarks suggesting that people in rural areas “cling to guns.” In the mailer, Clinton’s campaign accuses Obama of telling people in Iowa “he was for the Second Amendment, in order to get their votes.”
The Sanders campaign said of the advertisement: “Maybe Hillary Clinton should apologize for this.”
Sanders, who has a D-minus rating from the NRA, has been criticized by gun control activists for not taking a strong enough stance on legislation to prevent gun violence.
Clinton seized on those attacks on Friday, calling out Sanders for being on the right of both Clinton and Obama on gun control.
In a hastily arranged conference call with reporters, Clinton’s top advisers said Friday that based on the criteria the president laid out in a recent op-ed — in which he said he could not support any Democrat running for office who doesn’t back his gun control initiatives — Sanders is ineligible to win Obama’s support in the Democratic primary.