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Sanders Tells Crowd Clinton ‘Not Qualified’ to Be President – Doubles Down With Press Release

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Vermont Senator Says He Is ‘Responding to Hillary Clinton’s Attempt to Portray Him as Unqualified’ – but Did She?

Wednesday morning Hillary Clinton told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Bernie Sanders “hadn’t done his homework” in response to a question about his interview with the New York Daily News Editorial Board.

“Do you believe this morning that Bernie Sanders is qualified and ready to be President of the United States?,” Joe Scarborough asked Clinton. 

“I will leave it to voters to decide who of us can do the job that the country needs, who can do all aspects of the job, both on the economic domestic issues and on national security and foreign policy,” was her ultimate response. 

Here’s the video:

Here’ the full transcript, via Real Clear Politics:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: We’re going to ask about Wisconsin in a second, but we’ve been talking about Bernie Sanders’ New York Daily News interview. I want to start with that and ask you in light of the interview, in light of the questions he had problems with, do you believe this morning that Bernie Sanders is qualified and ready to be president of the United States? 

CLINTON: Well, I think the interview raised a lot of really serious questions and I look at it this way. The core of his campaign has been break up the banks and it didn’t seem in reading his answers that he understood exactly how that would work under Dodd-Frank, exactly who would be responsible, what the criteria were. And you know, that means you can’t really help people if you don’t know how to do what you are campaigning on saying you want to do. 

SCARBOROUGH: So is he — so is he…

CLINTON: And then there were other very…

SCARBOROUGH: Is he — I know there are a lot of examples of where he came up short and the interviewers were having to repeat questions. So the question, and I’m serious, if you weren’t running today and you looked at Bernie Sanders, would you look and say this guy is ready to be president of the United States? 

CLINTON: Well, I think he hadn’t done his homework and he’d been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn’t really studied or understood, and that does raise a lot of questions. Really what that goes to is for voters to ask themselves can he deliver what he’s talking about, can he really help people…

SCARBOROUGH: What do you think?

CLINTON: Can he help our economy? Can he keep our country strong? Well obviously, I think I’m by far the better choice and…

SCARBOROUGH: But do you think he is qualified? And do you think he is able to deliver on the things he is promising to all these Democratic voters? 

CLINTON: Well, let me put it this way, Joe. I think that what he has been saying about the core issue in his whole campaign doesn’t seem to be rooted in an understanding of either the law or the practical ways you get something done. And I will leave it to voters to decide who of us can do the job that the country needs, who can do all aspects of the job, both on the economic domestic issues and on national security and foreign policy.

Clinton did not say Bernie Sanders is “unqualified” to be President. In fact, she refused to, when directly asked.

That was confirmed by several journalists:

Wednesday night, Bernie Sanders told a crowd that Hillary Clinton “has been saying lately that she thinks that I am ‘not qualified’ to be president. Well, let me, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton: I don’t believe that she is qualified, if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds. I don’t think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC.”

Here’s the video:

Sanders later followed up with a press release:

PHILADELPHIA – Responding to Hillary Clinton’s attempt to portray him as unqualified for the White House, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders linked her to a trade pact exploited by wealthy individuals and profitable corporations to avoid paying taxes.

An investigation by a team of journalists revealed that 214,000 entities throughout the world have used a law firm in Panama to shelter their incomes and profits to avoid paying taxes. The release this week of the documents on offshore financial dealings raised questions over the widespread use of tactics to avoid taxes.

Sanders cited the former secretary of state’s support of the trade deal as one reason she should not be the party’s nominee for president. “I don’t think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement, something I very strongly opposed, which has made it easier for wealthy people and corporations all over the world to avoid paying taxes owed to their countries,” Sanders told a rally at Temple University in an auditorium packed with nearly 13,000 supporters.

Sanders five years ago led opposition to the Panama trade deal in a Senate floor speech. He predicted that the pact would make it easier for the wealthy and the powerful to stash their cash in Panama to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Clinton had opposed the deal in 2008 when she was running against then Sen. Barack Obama. But in an about face, she helped push the agreement through Congress when she was secretary of state.

“The American people are sick and tired of establishment politicians who say one thing during a campaign and do the exact opposite the day after the election,” Sanders said on Tuesday in a prepared statement. As president, Sanders said he would terminate the trade deal and investigate U.S. banks, corporations and wealthy individuals who have been stashing their cash in Panama to avoid taxes.

Sanders came to Pennsylvania fresh off a win Tuesday in Wisconsin, his seventh victory in the past eight caucuses and primaries. A new national poll release Wednesday put him ahead of Clinton by two points and also showed him ahead of Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

Clinton earlier on Wednesday questioned Sanders’ qualifications to be president. “Secretary Clinton appears to be getting a little nervous,” he shot back. “She has been saying lately that I am not qualified to be president.”

Sanders then ticked off his own list of reasons why Clinton isn’t qualified to be in the White House.

“I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is through her super PAC taking tens of millions of dollars in special-interest funds.

“I don’t think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC.

“I don’t think you are qualified if you voted for the disastrous war in Iraq.

“I don’t think you’re qualified if you supported almost every disastrous trade agreement.

“I don’t think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement, something I very strongly opposed, which has gave the green light to wealthy people and corporations all over the world to avoid paying taxes owed to their countries.”

 

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Conservative Insider Throws Cold Water on GOP’s Midterm Confidence

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June 12, 2026

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Right-wing journalist Ben Domenech isn’t aligned with GOP wisdom that the Republican Party should do well in the November midterm elections. In a lengthy written conversation with The New York Times, Domenech says he is “skeptical.”

“Republicans still seem to think that, thanks to redistricting and their advantages in fund-raising, they could buck historical trends and hold on, perhaps even in the House,” Domenech told the Times’ John Guida. “They’re just scared about gas prices. Personally, I’m skeptical.”

Looking specifically at Maine, which Republicans see as the “linchpin” to holding the Senate majority, according to Guida, Domenech also sends a warning. The race will be between U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Democratic insurgent newcomer Graham Platner, who has already faced numerous scandals.

“The interesting thing about this whole focus on Maine is that if you talk to Senate Republican staff and consultants, they’re actually less worried about it than other states,” says Domenech. “This is partially because of Platner’s shall we say unique collection of scandals and challenges, but it’s also because of enormous faith in Collins as a survivor.”

Collins, 73, is running for her sixth term after being first elected in 1996.

Guida points to a Politico report on a memo that states: “the political fundamentals in Maine remain challenging, and it is a fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win.”

“I think that’s correct,” says Domenech, “and top Republicans should actually be more concerned.”

“Platner clearly has energy behind him. He speaks to a desire on the left for a strong message, and he’s shown no signs of bowing to pressure to get out for a more centrist-coded candidate,” he adds. “Collins is absolutely capable of winning, but national assumptions are taking over based on her last election, in 2020, when she came back from what seemed like a deep hole by keeping her campaign hyperlocal.”

Domenech says that Republicans do have some concerns, specifically about three states Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024: Alaska, Iowa and Ohio.

In Ohio, former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown is seeking to return to the Senate, and is running against “an appointee who has never won a Senate election, Jon Husted.”

In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola is running against Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent who “has the advantage there, but again, we’re talking about a unique state, and Peltola is an Alaska Native,” says Domenech. That race is now considered a “toss up” by The Center for Politics’ “Crystal Ball,” which also now rates the Ohio race as a “toss up.”

Iowa could become a difficult race for Republicans as well. Domenech warns it “could turn out to be a real test for Trump’s tariff policies, which have been a decidedly mixed bag in many of the states that backed him. The president will probably have to take that argument to the people of Iowa himself.”

Overall, says Domenech, Republicans’ confidence “comes from a belief that Democratic radicalism, particularly the various examples of what they view as a renewed cultural leftism in opposition to Trump during his first term, will play in their favor.”

 

Image via Shutterstock

 

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Conservative Talk Radio Host’s Brutal New Label for Trump: ‘Clown’

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June 12, 2026

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Prominent conservative talk radio host Erick Erickson has a new label for President Donald Trump: “clown.”

On his Substack newsletter, Erickson slams the president over his approach to the Iran war, for which, he notes, Trump has at least 39 times in the last 65 days “declared the United States and Iran were close to a deal only to have the Iranians openly mock him and deny it.”

He notes too that Trump on Thursday morning told “Fox & Friends” that the bombing of Iran would resume. That changed quickly.

“By the afternoon, he declared bombings would cease because a deal was close,” Erickson writes. “He claimed buy-in from the Egyptians, the Emirates, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Israelis, the Iranians, and more.”

Both Egypt and Israel said they had no knowledge of a deal.

“The President, the other days, said Iran was playing us,” says Erickson. “The only one being played is President Trump. A state of war exists between Iran and its neighbors. The ceasefire is a farce. The President has turned into a clown.”

Erickson is no moderate — he was once the editor-in-chief of the right-wing website RedState and was a Fox News contributor. His bio on Spotify says his podcast “cuts through the chaos with bold clarity and biblical conviction.”

Erickson goes on to call it “Obamaesque” to think that any negotiation with a “terrorist regime that is premised on bringing about the apocalypse” is possible.

He says Trump chose to “engage” Iran and criticizes him for dealing “a serious blow” but not a “knockout” one. And he criticizes Trump for ordering Israel “to pull its punches.”

“We have now harmed our relationships with our Middle Eastern allies who depend on us for protection,” writes Erickson. “The situation is now more unstable than before the war began and it is all because of a single person who swears he’ll get a deal any day now.”

“The President should be embarrassed,” Erickson charges. “Instead, he’ll be mad at everyone except the man in his mirror.”

 

Image via Reuters 

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What Democratic Voters Actually Want

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4 hours ago

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June 12, 2026

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Politicians, pundits, and pollsters are all trying to figure out what Democratic voters really want. With the extremely high stakes of the 2026 and 2028 elections before us — potentially including Supreme Court picks — divining the answer could set the course of the nation for the next decade, and longer.

But, as G. Elliott Morris writes at Strength in Numbers, the precise problem may just be that voters do not know what they want — or, to be more exact, what they say and what they mean can be very different. And that makes political strategy — and policy — nearly impossible to get correct.

Morris points to a recent New York Times poll that found a plurality of potential Democratic primary voters (47 percent) want the Democratic Party to move toward the center. But that very same poll of the same respondents also found that nearly half (49 percent) have a favorable opinion of socialism. And, to make matters even more difficult, a majority (55 percent) of those same voters say the party is neither too far to the left nor to the right.

“So what we’ve got here,” Morris writes, “is a Democratic electorate that is evidently pro-moderate, pro-socialist, and favors the party’s ideological status quo.”

Looking at a different poll, from May, Morris found that what all voters — not just Democrats — want are “middle-class tax cuts, higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, and a crackdown on corporate price-gouging.”

“Either the electorate is hopelessly confused,” he continues, “or the ‘move left or center’ question isn’t measuring what pundits think it measures — or both.”

Morris digs deeper.

“Voters aren’t strategists, and asking them whether the party should move to the center doesn’t measure the electoral payoff of moving to the center — it measures whether they’ve absorbed, and agree with, the conventional wisdom that says moving to the center is how parties win,” he writes. “Those are different things.”

Morris goes one step further: “it’s not clear Americans have a good understanding of ideology anyway — or, at the very least, that that understanding translates in any way to policy and other outcomes.”

He notes that in the Times poll, nearly one-third of Democratic voters couldn’t explain what they thought about socialism —which means that this finding “indicates a low level of engagement with these subjects among the general public.”

Finally, Morris really gets to the heart of the matter.

He explains that he showed in April that only 8 percent of “self-described ‘moderates’ actually want moderation when you let them describe their politics in their own words.”

 

Image via Shutterstock

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