Watch: Bernie Sanders thinks Hillary Clinton isn't 'qualified' to be president

Bernie Sanders set the cats among the pigeons by claiming that Hillary Clinton wasn’t qualified to be the next president of the United States of America.

He told a crowd in Philadelphia, reports Vox.com: "Secretary Clinton appears to be getting a little bit nervous. And she has been saying lately that she thinks that I am 'not qualified' to be president. Well, let me, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton: I don't believe that she is qualified."

His reasons include:
1) Hillary’s support of PACs accepting money from special interest donors, including donations from Wall Street banks.

2) Her vote cast to authorize the Iraq War in 2003

3) Her support of free trade agreements including the Panama Free Trade Agreement, which is in the news because of the explosive revelations in the Panama Papers. This was a direct reply to Clinton’s earlier remarks when she said: “I think he hadn't done his homework, and he'd been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn't really studied or understood, and that does raise a lot of questions.” The two are headed towards a heated battle in New York on April 19.

Hillary Clinton's campaign, stung by a string of losses, is testing a new line of attack against rival Bernie Sanders before New York's Democratic primary: sharply question his credentials and ability to implement a campaign pledge to break up big banks.

Meanwhile, a new opinion poll released Thursday showed national support for Sanders and Clinton nearly evenly divided, with 46 percent backing Clinton and 47 percent behind Sanders. 
Amid the new tactics, a Super PAC supporting Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination in the Nov. 8 presidential election has circulated comparisons between Sanders and Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
The two-pronged attack before New York's nominating contest on April 19, focused on Sanders' policy-heavy interview with the New York Daily News.

The Super PAC, Correct the Record, circulated a mash-up of television pundits criticizing Sanders’ perceived missteps in the interview, quoting one calling it “almost Trumpian.”
 

In an email to supporters, a senior Clinton campaign aide said “even on his signature issue of breaking up the banks” Sanders had been “unable to answer basic questions." The email included a transcript of the full interview.

“If you are going to be a single-issue candidate, at least know your single issue,” Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon said on Twitter.

"After reading the NYDN interview today, I feel like someone should ask HOW after every one of these declarative sentences in Sanders stump," deputy press secretary Jesse Ferguson posted Tuesday on Twitter. 

Sanders, a U.S. Senator from Vermont, has made reducing income inequality and breaking up “too-big-to-fail” banks central to his presidential campaign, blasting Clinton for money she received for speeches to banks and accusing her of being too closely tied to the financial industry.

Sanders hit back immediately. "Secretary Clinton appears to be getting a little nervous,” he said on Wednesday, adding he thought Clinton herself was unqualified because of her support of the Iraq war, as well as trade deals that cost U.S. jobs.

The escalating tension between the two candidates, who for months refrained from criticizing one another, comes after Sanders took Wisconsin on Tuesday to notch six of the last seven contests for the Democratic nomination.
Sanders continues to trail Clinton in pledged delegates needed to win the nomination ahead of the party’s July convention in Philadelphia.

The opinion poll, a telephone survey of more than 2,000 voters was conducted before Sanders' victory in Wisconsin. The poll, by The Atlantic and the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute, had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
Clinton sees New York, a state that she represented as a U.S. senator for eight years, as home turf.
With inputs from agencies