Throughout the early Democratic primary race, President Barack Obama has remained mostly quiet, only occasionally weighing in on the battle to succeed him. In a wide-ranging interview, however, Obama seemed to tip his hand, describing Hillary Clinton as “wicked smart” and implying that Bernie Sanders is a one-issue candidate.

“[The] one thing everybody understands is that this job right here, you don’t have the luxury of just focusing on one thing,” the president said in a wide-ranging interview with Politico published Monday, exactly one week before the Iowa caucuses kick off the primary voting season.

While Sanders has a comprehensive policy platform, his driving concern has been income inequality and the corrupting influence that money has on the political process. Obama acknowledged that the issue is resonating with voters (“Well, I don't want to play political consultant, because obviously what he’s doing is working”), but noted that the Vermont senator would have to demonstrate that he could “pass a series of hurdles that the voters are going to put in front of you.”

As an example, he brought up the recent moment when he learned that Iran had captured several U.S. soldiers while he was drafting his recent State of the Union address: “that's maybe a dramatic example, but not an unusual example of the job.”

Sanders, like Obama, has managed to capture the imaginations of many of the same young, motivated college-aged voters that helped elect Obama. But the president, who won a shocking victory over Clinton in the 2008 Iowa caucuses, told Politico that he doesn’t believe Sanders’ surge is similar to his own, and later acknowledged that he’d come around to Clinton’s description of the presidency—the same description that she’d used to criticize Obama eight years ago: “I think that what Hillary presents is a recognition that translating values into governance and delivering the goods is ultimately the job of politics, making a real-life difference to people in their day-to-day lives.”

Off-the-record sources told Politico that, privately, Obama supports Clinton, who’s once again facing an uphill battle in Iowa, where she and Sanders are nearly neck and neck in the polls. With Sanders poised to take New Hampshire, Clinton desperately needs a victory in Iowa to prove that she won’t be undercut by the passion propelling the self-described democratic socialist. In recent debate appearances, Clinton has tactically presented herself as Obama’s successor. Without acknowledging it directly, the 44th president hinted that it would ultimately be a successful strategy: “My bet is that the candidate who can project hope still is the candidate who the American people, over the long term, will gravitate towards,” Obama said.

Update (1:23 P.M.): During an appearance Monday on CNN, a Sanders campaign adviser blasted Obama’s comments, characterizing them as “to be expected” and arguing that the “political establishment ... is supporting continuity.”

“Bernie is saying to millions of Americans, and that’s where the energy is coming from, that we can work for change,” Larry Cohen said. “It’s not simple, it won’t be just ‘elect me,’ it’ll be that we have to work for change on city councils, on state legislatures, and everything up and down the scale.”