New Yorkers are a blunt and confrontational bunch, so it’s only appropriate that as the presidential campaign heads to the Empire State—birthplace of Bernie Sanders and adopted home of Hillary Clinton—ahead of the April 19 primary, the Democratic race is getting a little chippy.

Speaking in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Sanders unloaded on Clinton, arguing she is unqualified to be president (and then sending out the remarks to reporters in a press release):

I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is through her super PAC taking tens of millions of dollars in special-interest funds.



I don’t think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC.



I don’t think you are qualified if you voted for the disastrous war in Iraq.



I don’t think you’re qualified if you supported almost every disastrous trade agreement.



I don’t think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement, something I very strongly opposed, which has gave the green light to wealthy people and corporations all over the world to avoid paying taxes owed to their countries.

The first thing to say about these remarks is that the escalation is almost entirely semantic, rather than material. All of the attacks that Sanders leveled here—Clinton’s support for free trade, backing for the war in Iraq, and coziness with Wall Street, and dependence on big donors—are things he’s talked about for months now.

Sanders cast his remarks as simple turnabout. “Secretary Clinton appears to be getting a little nervous,” he said. “She has been saying lately that I am not qualified to be president.”

The Vermonter appears to be referring to an interview Clinton did with MSNBC’s Morning Joe, in which she criticized Sanders for his vague answers in a meeting with the New York Daily News editorial board. The Clinton campaign has leapt on that interview with the News, even sending out the full transcript as a fundraising email. (Sanders’s defenders continue to insist, contra the transcript, that he was crystal clear.) In the TV interview, Joe Scarborough tried three times to get Clinton to say that she didn’t think Sanders was qualified.