Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) slammed the billionaires who have been donating money to former President Donald Trump in his 2024 presidential campaign, calling them “greedy.”
Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes: Called Billionaires who embraced the former president as a supporter of their policies.
“In a time when there’s so much greed out there, when the billionaire class’s religion is greed, they’re willing to abandon democracy and take a hit,” he told Hayes in an interview Friday.
“They are so greedy. They are obsessed with their wealth and their power and they will do anything to keep it,” Sanders continued, adding that “Trump is a terrible example of someone selling himself out for money.”
The senator, who ran against President Biden in the 2020 election, gave examples of areas where billionaires have the most influence, including health care and climate change.
“Trump is a man who wants to further deregulate the fossil fuel industry and destroy the planet,” Sanders argued, asking, “Why?”
That’s because billionaires are willing to spend “huge amounts of money” to control the narrative, he replied.
Asked about how much money political action committees and donors could give to candidates following the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which paved the way for unlimited independent funding in federal elections, Sanders charged that it was difficult to win an election without the money of billionaires.
“If you have the courage to stand up to neocon foreign policy [or] “If you stand up to the big corporate interests that are so powerful and that are telling you what’s going to happen, you’re going to lose,” he said Friday, “and that message is being sent across Congress: If you stand up for working class people, your days are numbered.”
“This is an oligarchy. This is something we need to focus on and address,” the senator added.
Sanders has pitched himself as the most “pro-union” president, specifically pointing to Biden, who walked the picket line at last year’s United Auto Workers strike, and Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who is working to fight monopolies, as examples of interests that billionaires would not support. He said they would only support Biden if he promoted the same policies as the wealthy.
His comments came after Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., received $50 million from businessman Timothy Mellon following the former president’s campaign. belief The investment, reportedly made in May, comes as the Republican front-runner has made forays into cryptocurrency, seemingly reversing course from his previous aversion to the payment method.
The Vermont Independent newspaper slammed the donation as “an utter disgrace” and called for the Citizens United case to be overturned.
“We have to get rid of that. And secondly, we have to fund our elections like many other countries in the world that have public funding for elections. So if you want to run against me, that’s fine, but you don’t want to have the right to take 50 times as much money from the rich to beat me,” he said. “We should debate ideas.”
Sanders reiterated that he believes billionaire donors care more about their own interests than about the people, which is why they would want someone like Trump to lead the country.
“I think these people want it because greed is so ugly and so pervasive. They want more and more,” Sanders said of a second term for Trump, as Biden and former President Trump face off in a likely rematch. “I don’t think they care at all about what’s happening to the elderly, the children, the working class of this country.”
“I believe they will do anything in their own interest, and Trump is clearly their ally,” he added.
