WASHINGTON – Sen. Bernie Sanders’ said his plan to win the Democratic nomination includes winning over an unlikely constituency: Donald Trump supporters.
Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, said many of the GOP frontrunner’s presidential backers are “working class people” who are simply angry over longer hours for lower wages, losing jobs to China and high college tuition.
“What Trump has done with some success has taken that anger, taken those fears, which are legitimate, and converted them into anger against Mexicans, anger against Muslims,” Sanders said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“That is not the way we’re going to address the major problems facing our country,” Sanders continued. “The way we address them is we bring our people together.”
Sanders said he aims to win over the same bloc of voters by demanding Congress pass legislation to raise the minimum wage, ensure pay equity for women, and creating new jobs and making college tuition affordable.
“Those are the ways I think that we improve lives for our people, not by dividing us up and having us hate Mexicans or Muslims,” Sanders said.
Trump responded via Twitter to Sanders’ attempt to woo his supporters. “@BernieSanders-who blew his campaign when he gave Hillary a pass on her e-mail crime, said that I feel wages in America are too high. Lie!”
Sanders, getting in the last word in a separate statement, reminded that Trump said in November that he doesn’t support raising a minimum wage because “wages would be too high” to compete globally.
“It appears that Mr. Trump is getting nervous that working families are catching on that his policies represent the interests of the billionaire class against almost everyone else,” Sanders said. “He refuses to support raising the minimum wage. He believes wages are too high and he wants to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the very richest families in America.”