Hillary Clinton's campaign managed to troll Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders in the same tweet
Justin Sullivan / Getty Staff
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's campaign trolled two rivals — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders — in a single tweet.
Clinton's team referenced Rubio's widely mocked debate talking points in a tweet criticizing Sanders for saying President Barack Obama had failed to bridge the divide between the American people and members of Congress.
"Let's dispel with this fiction that @POTUS doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing," Clinton's tweet said, linking to an NBC article where Sanders is quoted slightly dinging Obama for supposedly failing to close the "presidential leadership gap."
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell asked Sanders in an interview Wednesday if he believed Obama did enough to narrow that gap between Congress and the American people.
"No, I don't. I mean, I think he has made the effort. But I think what we need, when I talk about a political revolution, is bringing millions and millions of people into the political process in a way that does not exist right now," Sanders said.
Sanders' opponents have repeatedly knocked the senator for supposedly failing to appreciate Obama's achievements. Some Democrats have noted that Sanders briefly appeared to advocate for a primary challenge to Obama in 2012, for example. And others have pointed to a blurb Sanders wrote lauding the 2016 book, "Buyer's Remorse: How Obama Let Progressives Down."
"Bill Press makes the case why, long after taking the oath of office, the next president of the United States must keep rallying the people who elected him or her on behalf of progressive causes. That is the only way real change will happen," Sanders' blurb said, referring to the author of the book, Bill Press.
Sanders has brushed off the criticisms, noting that he supported Obama in 2008 and 2012 and that Obama campaigned for Sanders during his 2006 Senate race in Vermont.
This also isn't the first time that Clinton or her allies have trolled Rubio over his habit of falling back on talking points.
Over the last week, two activists working for the liberal super PAC American Bridge, dressed as robots, have followed Rubio around several early primary states.
"Marco Rubio bot here," one of the staffers dressed as a robot said on Sunday. "As I told everyone last night: Barack Obama knows exactly what he's doing. Barack Obama knows exactly what he's doing. Barack Obama knows exactly what he's doing."
Asked about Clinton's tweet on Thursday, Rubio didn't back down.
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/697868062041702404
Rubio responds to Clinton tweet: "Let's dispel another notion, that she's even qualified to be POTUS"
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