“The job of the progressive movement now is to look forward, not backward,” Bernie Sanders said Wednesday. | Getty Sanders on WikiLeaks reveals: ‘Look forward, not backward’

Sen. Bernie Sanders downplayed revelations in Hillary Clinton’s private Wall Street speeches and encouraged those in his movement to focus instead on what lies ahead.

“The job of the progressive movement now is to look forward, not backward,” Sanders said Wednesday in a statement to NBC News. “No matter what Secretary Clinton may have said years ago, behind closed doors, what’s important today is that millions of people stand up and demand that the Democratic Party implement the most progressive platform in the history of our country.”


WikiLeaks has been releasing installments of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s hacked emails. Included in Wednesday’s release were flagged excerpts of some Clinton Wall Street speeches in which she offered warm and at times sympathetic words for Wall Street.

This is not the first time Sanders has needed to soothe his supporters after conversations among party insiders have been revealed. On the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, internal emails about party officials conspiring against Sanders’ campaign led to the resignation of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

During the primary, the Vermont senator pressed Clinton to release transcripts of her paid speeches. He jokingly promised he would do the same if she relented.

“Sen. Sanders accepts Clinton’s challenge,” spokesman Michael Briggs said in a statement in February. “He will release all of the transcripts of all of his Wall Street speeches. That’s easy. The fact is, there weren’t any. Bernie gave no speeches to Wall Street firms.”

Since the convention, Sanders has mainly stumped for Clinton in New Hampshire, but he has also ventured to places like Iowa and Wisconsin.

