In a separate interview on “This Week”, Clinton communications director Jen Palmieri defended Clinton’s claim but admitted that there is not evidence of a specific video ISIS has used.
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US Democrat candidate Hilary Clinton made the claim during a presidential debate on Saturday.
In the runup to the debate, staffers from both campaigns had sniped and griped at each other over the revelation that Sanders aides had improperly accessed Clinton’s voter database.
He hit a true low when Sanders and Clinton debated their approach to war in the Middle East. “May I offer a different generation’s perspective on this?” he said, a dismally transparent attempt to cast them as old.
“She’ll be fine. She isn’t going to focus on Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley”. “After withholding from us for days activity logs that were in the possession of the DNC and ironically in the possession of all of you”, he told reporters, the Sanders campaign finally got those records on Saturday afternoon.
“Obviously, we were distressed when we learned of it, because we have worked very hard – I said in the beginning of this campaign, we want to reach as many voters as possible, and we have tens of thousands of volunteers doing that, and entering data all the time to keep up with what people are telling us”, Clinton said.
Data and IT are uncomfortable topics for Clinton, who was the centre of an uproar after it was revealed she used a personal email account and server while secretary of state.
O’Malley accused his rivals of being too soft on gun control. The Sanders campaign described this as an overreaction and suggested that it was part of an effort by the party organization to aid Clinton, who is now the overwhelming frontrunner in the Democratic primary. He said both Clinton and Sanders had adopted more aggressive positions on gun control only after this year’s increase in mass shootings. “It is not Assad who is attacking the United States – it is ISIS”. Clinton struck back, reminding Sanders that he “voted for regime change” in Libya. “But before you do that, you’ve got to think about what happens the day after”, said Sanders, a democratic socialist.
The three Democratic candidates, in contrast, looked dwarfed by a huge stage at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire – and despite differences between candidates, particularly on national security, Republicans would argue that the more intense atmosphere of their debates is a sign of a much more engaged political base than is the case for Democrats. But Sanders stated that “we have got to get our foreign policy and our priorities right”. He said he does not support any “unilateral military action” but rather a coalition in which the USA works hand in hand with Muslim nations to fight the radical militant group.
Privately, Sanders supporters say they think the episode can burnish the senator’s credentials as an outsider. Neighboring his home state ofVermont and with a predominantly white electorate, the Granite State plays to Sanders’ strengths and gives him the clearest chance to blunt Clinton’s national momentum.
Sanders, in a move to differentiate himself from Clinton, again pushed for guaranteed health care. She said as president she wouldn’t raise taxes on families making $250,000 (230,000 euros) or less per year.
But when pressed by the debate moderators, she would not say if that meant she would be willing to shoot down Russian planes, saying “I do not think it would come to that”.
Each campaign uses the information to contact voters and collect their own data like the voter’s support level for a candidate, how persuadable the voter is, and specific issues the voter is interested in.
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“The greed of Wall Street is destroying this economy and is destroying the lives of millions of Americans”, Sanders said.
