Bernie Sanders echoed Martin O’Malley’s criticism of the Democratic Party on Sunday, suggesting that the DNC is “dead wrong” for limiting the number of debates.

Sanders, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper, agreed that limiting the number of debates is detrimental to the nation because “this country benefits, all people benefits, democracy benefits when we have debates and I want to see more of them.”

Jake Tapper: Governor Martin O’Malley tore in to the Democratic National Committee on Friday, as you know, accusing the party of rigging the debate process to favor Hillary Clinton. Do you agree with governor O’Malley?

Bernie Sanders: I think rigging is a strong word. I think that at a time when so many of our people have given up on the political process, when 80% of young people did not vote in the last election, 63% of all Americans did not vote, I think debates are a good thing. I love love debates, I’ve done it all my life. So I would like to see more debates. I would like to see groups representing working people have a debate to talk about why the rich get richer and everybody else gets poorer. I think environmentalists deserve a debate so we could talk about how we move aggressively to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel. I think young people deserve a debate in terms of my idea and other ideas about how we make college education in this country in public colleges and universities tuition free. How we deal with student debt. How we deal with tax reform…

Tapper: Senator Sanders…

Sanders: Yeah?

Tapper: the DNC as you know, is saying that if you or Governor O’Malley participate in any non-sanctioned debate, then you don’t get to participate in the official ones. They are restricting the number of debates.

Sanders And I think that that is dead wrong and I have let the leadership of the Democrats know that. Again, I think this country benefits, all people benefits, democracy benefits when we have debates and I want to see more of them.

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