Exclusive interview: Sanders swings back at Clinton

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders shot back at Hillary Clinton Sunday afternoon after the former secretary of state suggested in Ames that Sanders intends to raise taxes on the middle class and "scrap" Obamacare.

In an exclusive interview with The Des Moines Register Sunday afternoon, Sanders pushed back on both of Clinton's arguments.

On taxes, Sanders said he does support a small payroll tax increase that would help fund three months of paid family medical leave for workers each year. That would allow new mothers to stay home with their newborns or children to take off time to care for ill parents, he said. Last spring, Clinton's successor in the Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., introduced legislation on the matter. Sanders was one of 19 co-sponsors.

The payroll tax increase would amount to $1.38 per week for the median wage earner, Sanders said. While Clinton has made paid family medical leave a cornerstone of her campaign, Sanders said she has not offered much in the way of concrete plans. And he said she needs to take a stand on the legislation, which is stalled in Congress.

"What is her program? What does she intend to do other than talk about it?" Sanders said.

"If she thinks $1.38 a week is just too much to spend, let her explain that to the people of Iowa."

Clinton also favors a 12-week paid family leave program and has said she’ll outline additional details about her plan as the campaign proceeds. A Clinton spokeswoman contacted Sunday declined comment on Sanders’ comments to the Register.

Sanders' comments followed a one-hour discussion in which he heard personal stories from a panel of family caregivers and experts. During that event, at Central Presbyterian Church in Des Moines, Sanders heard from people young and old struggling to provide care for elderly or sick relatives.

Some said they haven't been able to get health care because of cost or shortages of direct care and medical workers. Others said they were forced to leave jobs to provide care for relatives. Some said they were simultaneously caring for their children and their parents.

"This is the story of our generation," said Terri Hale, who is caring for her 84-year-old father. "This is what we talk about when we get together at dinner. It used to be we talked about our 16-year-old asking for car keys, and now we're talking about how we get the car keys from mom or dad."

Sanders made a direct connection between those stories and Clinton's claim in the debate that he planned to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.

"We have Obamacare right now. It doesn't seem to be working for people in that room," he said.

He said his plans for a single-payer health care system aren't based on dismantling Obamacare, but expanding and improving it.

"This is just old-fashioned political gimmickry," Sanders said. "I helped write the Affordable Care Act. So I don't want somebody suggesting I'm trying to dismantle legislation that I helped write."

Clearer differences

Sanders told the Register that he was pleased with his performance at Saturday's Democratic debate in Des Moines. He said the debate helped showcase differences between him and Clinton. And he believes the issue of Wall Street reform is shaping up to be one of the biggest lines of distinction.

"If you are a candidate whose major contributors over your political life in fact are Wall Street, are you going to be prepared to do what has to be done to protect the taxpayers of this country?" he said.

Though Clinton accused Sanders of assailing her character at Saturday's debate, Sanders said he remains committed to running a positive campaign. While the contrasts on issues may be getting sharper, he said they won't get personal.

"To contrast your ideas is not to make character attacks on somebody else. It's that we have differences of opinion," he said. "I like Hillary Clinton. We have differences of opinion."

Has Sanders peaked?

On Sunday, Sanders rejected a growing national media chorus that views his campaign as plateauing after a summer of rising in the polls.

"When the media gets into a narrative, it's very hard to break it," he said.

"Our campaign is probably polling higher now than we ever have," he said, contending both he and Clinton have picked up support from backers of Vice President Joe Biden after he decided last month not to run.

Sanders acknowledged that he is behind Clinton, but he still believes he can post wins in Iowa and New Hampshire — and that wins there could change the shape of the national race.

Sanders also rejected another common refrain from pundits who say his campaign is drawing only the left wing of the Democratic Party. He pointed to national polls that show him doing better than Clinton in a potential match-up with Republican Donald Trump.

A Real Clear Politics' average of polls shows Sanders winning 47.7 percent in a general election, with Trump earning 43 percent of the vote. And Sanders said he's still unknown to as much as a quarter of the population in some parts of the country, which gives him plenty of room to grow his support.

"So we are able to appeal to a lot of working-class people, some of whom are Republicans, many of whom are independents," Sanders said. "If you look at the polling, what you'll find out is that we have a lot more support than (Clinton) does from independents, a heck of a lot more support from younger people."