Sen. Bernie Sanders said Donald Trump’s supporters are continuing to stick with him in part because the Democratic Party has ignored the working class.
Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the Vermont independent discussed his opposition to the Senate Republican health care bill and said he believes Trump’s base will part with him once they understand his policies.
Hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough asked Sanders why his base has been so loyal.
“For the last many, many years, the Democratic Party has been spending too much money, too much time raising money from its wealthy friends, turning its back on rural America, turning its back on the working class,” Sanders replied.
He claimed that they have not been paying attention to the needs of people whose standard of living has been in decline, but rather have focused on “deregulating Wall Street.”
Sanders then touted his trips outside of Washington, D.C. to states that may not directly support him to talk about health care in their communities and to denounce the new senate health care bill.
He criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s support of the bill by saying that Kentucky has actually benefited the most from the Affordable Care Act and that the state “saw a significant decline in the number of uninsured from 20 percent to 7.8 percent.”
“How do you have a United States senator representing a state that has done extraordinarily well and says ‘I’m will throw 30,000 people in my state off health insurance’?” Sanders asked.
“I hope we beat this thing. I hope we beat this thing badly.”