Hillary Clinton Hits Bernie Sanders' Pitch as 'Artful Smear'

Sen. Bernie Sanders got pushback from Hillary Clinton when he again framed her as an establishment candidate, a friend to Wall Street, and the recipient of speaking fees for Wall Street firms during the MSNBC Feb. 4 debate.

“It is time to end the very artful smear that you and your campaign have been carrying out in recent weeks,” Clinton said in an apparently practiced response. As a woman, she can’t represent the establishment, she said, arguing that Wall Street is gunning for her. 

Clinton “does represent the establishment,” Sanders said. “I represent ordinary Americans.”

Sanders began doubling down on casting Clinton as an “establishment” candidate in mid-January, when he framed her major supporters – abortion business Planned Parenthood and LGBT-rights organization the Human Rights Campaign – as part of “the political establishment.”

“What we are doing in this campaign — and it just blows my mind every day, because I see it clearly, we’re taking on not only Wall Street and the economic establishment, we’re taking on the political establishment,” he said.

“Hillary Clinton has been around there for a very, very long time and some of these groups are, in fact, part of the establishment,” Sanders continued. “Look, I’m going to do well and hopefully not win [just] because of establishment support.”