Former President Bill Clinton privately criticized his wife Hillary’s failed 2016 presidential campaign, complaining to a friend that it couldn’t “sell p—y on a troop train,” according to a new book. 

The 42nd president’s complaint was specifically aimed at the Hillary Clinton campaign’s heavy use of identity politics –  attempting to paint Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) policies as sexist and racist in op-eds ghost-written by advocacy groups – as the former secretary of state battled the socialist lawmaker for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

“To the extent that the campaign tactic moved the needle at all, it likely pushed moderate voters paying only marginal attention to the campaign towards Sanders, who spoke like a normal person while Clinton began ascending into what her ally James Carville would later call, ‘faculty lounge speak,’” journalist Ryan Grim writes in “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution,” which was released last week. 

“Former President Bill Clinton, surveying the landscape and the ham-handed efforts at identity politics was bereft, lamenting to a longtime friend in the fall of 2016 that Hillary’s campaign ‘could not sell p—y on a troop train,’” Grim writes. 

Hillary Clinton, who edged out Sanders in the Democratic primary race but lost to Donald Trump in the general election, has acknowledged that she didn’t run a “perfect campaign” but has also blamed her defeat on misogyny, Russian interference and the FBI’s investigation of her use of a private email server while heading the State Department. 

“I was on the way to winning until a combination of [former FBI Director] Jim Comey’s letter on Oct. 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off,” Clinton told CNN in May 2017. 

“If the election were on Oct. 27, I would be your president,” Clinton added, referring to Comey notifying Congress on Oct. 28, 2016, that the bureau was investigating newly discovered emails three months after the FBI concluded that Clinton had been “extremely careless” but recommended no charges against her over the server scandal. 

When asked by Christiane Amanpour in the same interview whether she believed she was a victim of misogyny, Clinton responded, “Yes, I do think it played a role … [misogyny] is very much a part of the landscape politically, socially and economically.”

Clinton is reportedly now helping President Biden with his 2024 re-election campaign, hosting a fundraiser for the incumbent at her Washington, DC, home last month, according to NBC News. 

Her role with the Biden campaign is expected to grow in the new year, the outlet reports.