Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders lamented the “dumb” rules that have stifled his insurgent campaign against Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, seemingly backing off of previous suggestions that the process was “rigged.”

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘rigged’ because we knew what the rules were — but what is really dumb, is that you have closed primaries, like in New York State, where three million people who were Democrats or Republicans could not participate,” Sanders told CBS. “You have a situation where over 400 superdelegates came on board Clinton’s campaign before anybody else was in the race, eight months before the first vote was cast. That’s not rigged, I think it’s just a dumb process which has certainly disadvantaged our campaign.”