--- title: Hillary Clinton Book: Bernie Sanders Pushes Back description: Bernie Sanders pushed back against Hillary Clinton's criticism that he did not do enough on her behalf in the general election. canonical: https://time.com/4945184/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-book/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-17T17:47:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:27:36.386Z article:section: Politics og:title: Bernie Sanders: I Did Everything I Could to Get Hillary Clinton Elected og:description: He responded to Clinton's criticism in her book og:url: https://time.com/4945184/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-book/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4da5dd87a9a35a2a/6988a9fdcd1bba4c7d702b3d/campaign-2016-debate-_wong1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Bernie Sanders: I Did Everything I Could to Get Hillary Clinton Elected twitter:description: He responded to Clinton's criticism in her book twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4da5dd87a9a35a2a/6988a9fdcd1bba4c7d702b3d/campaign-2016-debate-_wong1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Bernie Sanders: I Did Everything I Could to Get Hillary Clinton Elected  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Sep 17, 2017 5:47 PM UTC  In this April 14, 2016 file photo, former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaks as Hillary Clinton listens during the CNN Democratic Presidential Primary Debate at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York. In this April 14, 2016 file photo, former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaks as Hillary Clinton listens during the CNN Democratic Presidential Primary Debate at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York.Seth Wenig—AP  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Sep 17, 2017 5:47 PM UTC Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders pushed back against Hillary Clinton’s criticism that he did not do enough on her behalf in the general election — claiming he had no control over his supporters who ultimately voted for Donald Trump. “Let me just say this; I worked as hard as I could after endorsing Hillary Clinton. I went all over this country. And I would remind people, people say, ‘Not everyone who voted for Bernie ended up voting for Hillary.’ No kidding, thats what happens in politics,” Sanders [told NBC News’ Chuck Todd](https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/-i-worked-as-hard-as-i-could-says-sanders-on-clinton-criticism-1048426051931) on _Meet the Press_ Sunday. “I worked as hard as I could to see that Hillary Clinton would be elected president.” Sanders’ response comes nearly a week after Hillary Clinton, who defeated him in the Democratic primaries, released her memoir “_What Happened,”_ chronicling her account of the 2016 election that resulted in her unexpected loss to President Donald Trump. Although Clinton defeated Sanders in the primary, he did not officially endorse her until July 2016, nearly a month after the last primary. In her book, Clinton writes that Sanders’ attacks against her during the primary, particularly the ones where he stressed her reliance on donors from Wall Street, caused “lasting damage” and even served as an impetus for Trump to coin the term “crooked Hillary,” sentiments she has [reiterated](http://abc.go.com/shows/the-view/video/pl5554876/VDKA4052803) in a series of interviews last week. (Speaking on _The View,_ she said she did not receive the same level of respect from Sanders and his supporters that she had given Barack Obama in 2008 after she lost the primary in terms of uniting the party). Clinton also notes in her book that the Russians targeted Sanders supporters online as part of their purported effort to derail her campaign, putting fake news stories on message boards and Facebook groups in favor of Sanders. Since the election, two surveys have emerged showing the percentage of voters in the Democratic primary who backed Sanders and then ultimately supported Trump could be as high as 12 percent, John Sides, a political science professor at George Washington University, [wrote in the ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/24/did-enough-bernie-sanders-supporters-vote-for-trump-to-cost-clinton-the-election/?utm%5Fterm=.a7cae54d874d)_Washington Post_ last month. A[ CBS News analysis](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-were-those-clinton-mccain-crossover-voters/) from 2008 found that 16 percent of voters who supported John McCain in that presidential election would have voted for Clinton had she been the party’s nominee instead of Barack Obama. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4945184/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-book/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4945184/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-book/"},"headline":"Bernie Sanders: I Did Everything I Could to Get Hillary Clinton Elected","datePublished":"2017-09-17T17:47:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T17:27:36.386Z","description":"He responded to Clinton's criticism in her book","url":"https://time.com/4945184/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-book/","keywords":["Bernie Sanders","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4da5dd87a9a35a2a/6988a9fdcd1bba4c7d702b3d/campaign-2016-debate-_wong1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4da5dd87a9a35a2a/6988a9fdcd1bba4c7d702b3d/campaign-2016-debate-_wong1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders","caption":"Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders","creditText":"Seth Wenig—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/bernie-sanders/","name":"Bernie Sanders"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4945184/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-book/","name":"Bernie Sanders: I Did Everything I Could to Get Hillary Clinton Elected"}}]}] ```