Former US President Bill Clinton criticized Republicans on Friday for changing their tune on Hillary Clinton now that she's running for president.

During a Southern California campaign stop in support of his wife's 2016 run for the White House, Clinton acknowledged that there has been "road rage" during both the Democratic and Republican primaries, but he said Republicans have turned an especially cold shoulder to Hillary.

The former president slammed the GOP for attempting to brand the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as the "wicked witch of the West"

Republicans "slobbered all over" Hillary while she was at the State Department, Clinton said to supporters gathered at an art venue in Santa Monica.

He knocked the GOP for its sharp rebukes of Hillary, likening the attacks to mudslinging and adding that "the problem with this kind of stuff is it works until it doesn't," he said.

Hillary Clinton's campaign has, at times, used her GOP rivals' own words to counter their criticism.

An online posting last year featured a picture of Donald Trump with a comment he made about Hillary in 2012.

"Hillary Clinton I think is a terrific woman ... I think she really works hard and I think she does a good job. I like her," the posting read.

Both Bill and Hillary made the rounds in Southern California on Friday, ahead of Tuesday's big primary in the state.

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The frontrunner sharpened her attacks on Trump in San Bernardino, accusing him of fundamentally misunderstanding the role of a US president.

"We are trying to elect a president, not a dictator," she said, according to Politico writer Gabriel Debenedetti.

That follows a bruising offensive Clinton aimed at Trump on Thursday during a foreign-policy speech in San Diego where she said putting the real-estate mogul in the White House would be a "historic mistake."

The Clintons did not appear to acknowledge Hillary's Democratic primary challenger, Bernie Sanders, during their campaign stops, pushing instead for unity among Democrats, while also focusing on Trump, Hillary's likely general-election opponent.

The California primary, where Clinton and Sanders remain in a dead heat, kicks off Tuesday, June 7.

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