Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders dismissed Bill Clinton's recent comparisons of him to the Tea Party, saying the former president's comments were "silly remarks" and adding that he has said "unfortunate" things on the campaign trail in an effort to make sure his wife Hillary wins the party's nomination.
"I think some of the things that President Clinton has been saying are unfortunate. I do understand, obviously, he's trying to do his best to get his wife to win the nomination to become president," Sanders said in an interview with Bloomberg TV aired on Tuesday. "I understand that my wife is doing her best to try to get me to become president. But we should not be making silly remarks."
Bloomberg host Mark Halperin continued the line of questioning, asking, according to Politico, "Is there a comparison..."
Sanders shot back, before the end of the question: "No, there's no comparison."
At a campaign event in South Florida on Monday, Bill Clinton compared Sanders and his supporters to the Tea Party, which, according to many observers, had an outsized role in the Republican Party following the 2008 election. While Clinton didn't mention Sanders by name, Clinton warned against following the GOP's lead, saying something similar is "going on right now in our party," according to the Orlando Sun-Sentinel.
"If you don't deal with the fact that we are too politically polarized and we keep rewarding people who tell us things we know we can't do because it pushes their hot buttons, we can't go forward together," Clinton said.
In the interview, Sanders responded to Clinton's criticism of "telling people what they want to hear."
"Yeah, I am telling people what they want to hear!," said Sanders. "People want jobs. They want health care. They want educational opportunities for their kids. They want to deal with climate change. They want the wealthiest people to pay their fair share of taxes. Yeah, that's what I'm telling people. And on every one of those issues, that is exactly what the American people want."
