Over the course of The Post interview, Sanders said Clinton was running a “desperate” campaign incapable of generating the kind of excitement his has. He raised questions about her motives and character. He said he expects Clinton and her campaign to “throw the kitchen sink” at him in the coming week in what he described as a craven attempt to avoid an embarrassing loss in Iowa.

Sanders questioned Clinton’s association with David Brock, the head of the pro-Clinton super PAC Correct the Record, whom Sanders called a “hit man.”

In recent media interviews, Brock has questioned Sanders’s commitment to African Americans and derisively labeled the senator, who self-identifies as a democratic socialist, as “a socialist.” Brock also reportedly planned to make an issue of the 74-year-old Sanders’s fitness for office — and demand that he release his health records. Brock begged off after Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta tweeted at Brock to “chill out.”

“As somebody who respects Secretary Clinton, its saddens me that she would go to a professional political hit man,” Sanders told The Post.