Hacked audio of a conversation between Hillary Clinton and donors
during a February fundraising event shows the Democrat nominee
describing Bernie Sanders supporters as "children of the Great
Recession" who are "living in their parents’ basement."
Speaking at a Virginia fundraiser hosted by former U.S. ambassador Beatrice Welters, Clinton says in a clip
released by the Free Beacon that many of her former primary opponent's
supporters sought things like “free college, free health care,” saying
that she preferred to occupy the space "from the center-left to the
center-right" on the political spectrum.
During the conversation, Clinton confesses to feeling "bewildered" by those to her far-left and far-right in the election.
"There is a strain of, on the one hand, the kind of populist,
nationalist, xenophobic, discriminatory kind of approach that we hear
too much of from the Republican candidates," she said. "And on the other
side, there’s just a deep desire to believe that we can have free
college, free healthcare, that what we’ve done hasn’t gone far enough,
and that we just need to, you know, go as far as, you know, Scandinavia,
whatever that means, and half the people don’t know what that means,
but it’s something that they deeply feel."
While stressing the need to not serve as a "wet blanket on idealism,"
Clinton paints fans of the then-surging Vermont senator as political
newbies attempting to deal with an economy that has fallen short of
their expectations.
"Some are new to politics completely. They’re children of the Great
Recession. And they are living in their parents’ basement," she said.
"They feel they got their education and the jobs that are available to
them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves. And they don’t
see much of a future."
Clinton added: "If you’re feeling like you’re consigned to, you know,
being a barista, or you know, some other job that doesn’t pay a lot,
and doesn’t have some other ladder of opportunity attached to it, then
the idea that maybe, just maybe, you could be part of a political
revolution is pretty appealing."
"I think we all should be really understanding of that," Clinton said.
The audio, which according to the Free Beacon was "revealed by
hackers who breached the email account of a campaign staffer," surfaces
the same week that Sanders hit the campaign trail to try to win those
same young voters that Clinton has struggled to attract since clinching
the Democratic nomination.
