Clinton allies blast Sanders 'qualified' remarks

Hillary Clinton’s campaign and allies wasted little time ripping into Bernie Sanders on Thursday after the Vermont senator told a roaring crowd in Philadelphia on Wednesday night that if his opponent thinks he is not qualified to be president, neither is she.

“That’s a pretty extraordinary claim. She’s probably among the very best qualified candidates to run for this office,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and a Clinton backer, told CNN’s “New Day.”


Clinton, Schiff added, “was just an extraordinary secretary of state. She has broad experience. I think she’ll make a tremendous commander in chief. I don’t think people will take that very seriously.”

While remarking that it is Sanders’ right to raise any appropriate issues or past Senate votes, as he has done in particular with her 2002 vote as a senator to authorize the use of force in Iraq, Schiff called it “an extraordinary characterization to say those are disqualifying characteristics.”

“Frankly, I’m much more concerned this week with what I heard Sen. Sanders say on the gun issue,” said Schiff, who expressed dismay at recent comments Sanders made in an interview with the New York Daily News editorial board.

Clinton’s campaign immediately hit back at Sanders’ comments on Wednesday evening.

“Hillary Clinton did not say Bernie Sanders was ’not qualified.’ But he has now — absurdly — said it about her. This is a new low,” press secretary Brian Fallon tweeted. In another message, he wrote, “Facing long odds, Sanders is inventing grievances & nonexistent paths to the nomination to rile his supporters & keep fundraising spigot on.”

Michael Nutter, the former of mayor of Philadelphia, where Sanders was speaking, called upon Sanders to take it back on Twitter. “Tonight @BernieSanders said [email protected] wasn’t qualified to be President. THIS is LOW and crosses the line. Take it back, Senator,” he wrote.

Fallon retweeted the message with the hashtag #TakeItBackBernie. Within hours, the hashtag #HillarySoQualified began trending on Twitter.

In a fundraising appeal to supporters sent early Thursday morning, Clinton’s deputy communications director, Christina Reynolds, said the Vermont senator had “crossed a line.”

“This is a ridiculous and irresponsible attack for someone to make — not just against the person who is almost certainly going to be the nominee of their party this November, but against someone who is one of the most qualified people to run for the presidency in the HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES,” Reynolds wrote. “Show Bernie Sanders there are consequences for this kind of attack.”

While Clinton did not specifically call Sanders unqualified during an interview with MSNBC's “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, the former secretary of state declined three times to say whether her opponent has the proper pedigree.

In her final dodge, Clinton remarked that she would “leave it to voters to decide who of us can do the job the country needs,” after also commenting that the Daily News interview “raised a lot of serious questions” and that Sanders “hadn't done his homework.”