Hillary Clinton has ripped her 2016 Democratic primary rival, socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, as a male chauvinist in a new book — hinting darkly that “I know the kind of things that he says about women and to women.”
The former secretary of state’s insinuation is included in the forthcoming book “Electable” by NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitali, which focuses on the 2020 presidential campaign and the preponderance of female candidates who sought the Democratic presidential nomination that year.
One of the subplots of the book, which was excerpted by Politico Friday, is the running drama between Sanders and his fellow left-winger, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, which climaxed in a hot-mic moment during a January 2020 debate in Iowa.
The spat spilled into the headlines after Warren accused Sanders of telling her in private that a woman couldn’t win the presidency. He denied making the statement during the debate, prompting a furious Warren to approach him after the event with her microphone still on.
“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” Warren told Sanders, who responded: “What?” After Warren repeated herself, Sanders tried to shrug her off, saying: “Let’s not do it right now. You wanna have that discussion, we’ll have that discussion.”
Clinton, who was watching the altercation unfold, told Vitali: “I believed her [Warren], because I know Sanders, and I know the kind of things that he says about women and to women. So, I thought that she was telling an accurate version of the conversation they’d had.”
However, the former first lady added that she wished Warren had gone after Sanders over his denial in the middle of the debate, rather than confronting him afterward.
“I wish she had done it on mic. I wish that she had pushed back in front of everybody. I think it weakened her response that it was after the cameras were supposedly off and, you know, they were just standing there,” Clinton said.
“I think it’s important that you call it out when it happens, and that was my only regret for her: that I wish she had just turned on him and said, ‘You know, it’s one thing to mislead people about your healthcare plan. It’s another thing to tell someone to her face that a conversation which you know happened didn’t happen.’
“I mean, that would have been, I think, a really important moment for her.”
Clinton defeated Sanders for the Democratic nomination in 2016 following a tougher-than-expected fight for delegates. Sanders again ran for president in 2020 and again came in second — this time to Joe Biden.
During both campaigns, Sanders was accused of stoking a subculture of young male supporters — dubbed “Bernie Bros” — who bullied and harassed women who did not support his candidacy.
In March 2020, after dropping out of the race, Warren told MSNBC that Bernie Bros had posted the home addresses and phone numbers of two women of color who worked for or ran groups that had either endorsed her or not endorsed Sanders.
The move, she said, led to an “onslaught of online threats.”
When asked by host Rachel Maddow if the harassment issue was a particular problem with Sanders supporters, Warren answered yes.
“It is, it just is,” she said.
Sanders’ office didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
“Electable” is due out Aug. 23.
