Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has little patience for idle chit-chat, climate change skeptics, the corporate media and photographers. He is easily angered by distortions of his record and late appointments. And he’s sick and tired of hearing about Hillary Clinton’s damn emails.
It has become a common trope in 2016 politics that Sanders can be irritable and impatient, but as the campaign has wore on and the pressures of creating a long-lasting movement rise, Sanders’ mood seems more dour, perhaps than it was a year ago. For Sanders, there is little time to waste to carry out an idealistic vision that has garnered millions of votes: universal healthcare, free college, and a more equal and just society.
In an interview with TIME for this week’s cover story, the Vermont senator bitterly recounted the attacks the Clintons have levied against him and the distortions of his record. He said that the Clintons and their allies “play very dirty” and had attacked him unfairly on guns and stray statements he’d made. Sanders said, too, that he was determined to transform the Democratic Party, which, he added, had stacked the deck against him from the staff.
Here are some more moments Sanders has memorably been caustic during the 2016 campaign.
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