More than a year after the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders feud continues to smolder.

Mr. Sanders took umbrage Sunday at Mrs. Clinton’s complaint in her newly released book about the 2016 presidential race, “What Happened,” that he didn’t work hard enough to bring out his voters to the polls in November.

“Let me just say this: I worked as hard as I could after endorsing Hillary Clinton,” Mr. Sanders said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I went all over this country. And I would remind people—people say, ‘Well, not everyone who voted for Bernie ended up voting for Hillary.’ No kidding.”

Mrs. Clinton said last week on “The View” that she urged her supporters to vote for Mr. Obama in 2008, but that in 2016, “I didn’t get that respect from him [Sanders] and his supporters.”

Mr. Sanders pointed out that nearly a quarter of her primary voters swung for Republican John McCain instead of Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race.

“That’s the nature of politics,” Mr. Sanders said. “Most people are not rigidly Democrats or Republicans. They vote where they want. I worked as hard as I could to see that Hillary Clinton would be elected president.”

Mr. Sanders, a Vermont independent, also took a shot Sunday at the Democratic Party when discussing his 2018 re-election bid.

“Let me just say something about this: The current model of the Democratic Party obviously is not working,” Mr. Sanders said. “Republicans control the House, the Senate. They control the White House. They control two-thirds of the governors’ offices throughout this country.”

Even though he ran for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, he said he plans to run for re-election next year as an independent, not a Democrat.

“In my view, Chuck, what we need to do is to reach out to independents,” Mr. Sanders said. “There are a heck of a lot more independents in this country than there are Republicans or Democrats. I am an independent.”

That doesn’t mean he plans on caucusing with the GOP. “I have worked within the Democratic caucus in the House and the Senate for over 25 years. I’ll continue to do that.”

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