Bernie Sanders on Tuesday called Hillary Clinton’s comments during the recent Democratic debate about her closeness to Wall Street “a little bit silly, a little bit absurd.”
“I wouldn’t use the word offensive. I found them a little bit silly, a little bit absurd,” Sanders said when asked by Yahoo’s Katie Couric if he took offense at her comments. “The issue was: What impact did the fact that she has received huge amounts of funding from Wall Street have on her attitude toward Wall Street?”
Sanders had ripped Clinton during the second Democratic debate last week for her ties to Wall Street.
At the debate, Clinton defended her tight relationship with the city’s financial community, which has supported her with substantial donations, by saying she had helped Wall Street because it had been hard hit by 9/11 — an explanation that drew criticism from Republicans and her Democratic rival Martin O’Malley.
“I represented New York, and I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked,” Clinton said during the debate. “Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York.”
Bill Clinton defended his wife’s remarks the day after the debate, saying that critics were overreaching.
“It is a stretch,” Bill Clinton told CNN after a campaign event in Iowa. “Those of us who were there know that.”
In the interview with Couric, Sanders continued to hit Clinton for her Wall Street financial connections and dismissed her 9/11 explanation.
“The truth is Hillary Clinton and all of us in the Congress did everything that we could to try to rebuild New York City after that devastating attack,” Sander said. “But that has nothing to do with the question of the impact of Wall Street campaign contributions on her views on Wall Street.”
Couric told Sanders that Hillary Clinton had apologized for her comments during the debate, but in fact she has not.