Rachel Maddow confronts Clinton over Sanders attack: You're 'casting aspersions on his character'

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow confronted Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton on Thursday night, accusing her of "casting aspersions" on the character of rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Clinton accused Sanders of being the first one on the Democratic side of the aisle to "go negative" with an attack ad, which Maddow said was mild, pointing out that Clinton's name was never mentioned in the ad.

"Anything personal, we don't do that in our side of the debate," Clinton said. "We engage on substantive differences."

Clinton added that there were policy differences between the two candidates and that voters expect a "spirited debate" between them.

But Maddow insisted that the Clinton campaign was getting into the mud slinging.

"Senator Sanders is obviously your opponent," Maddow challenged. "Nobody expects you guys to walk hand-in-hand and come to consensus on who ought to be the nominee. But he also doesn't have an enemy in the world in the Democratic party... He's a very well respected figure. Your campaign is essentially fighting with him now in a way that is casting aspersions on his character, calling him dishonest."

Clinton denied that was the case and said she has nothing negative to say about him. She said the difference was over how each candidate would approach health care, and that Sanders wants to "basically start all over again" and implement a single-payer system that she believes would cost "about $15 trillion."

She then said Sanders wasn't providing specifics on how he would get from the current Affordable Care Act to single payer.

Watch the exchange, via MSNBC, here: