Sanders: Trump ‘tapped into a lot of pain and anxiety and angst’
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is expressing hope that the President-elect Donald Trump will follow through on his promises to strengthen America’s working class.
{mosads}”I mean, above and beyond the incredible bigotry of the Trump campaign, what he did is tapped into a lot of pain and anxiety and angst, the American people are feeling which is very rarely reported in the media or understood by the punditry,” Sanders said during his appearance on “The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert.”
“At the end of the campaign, Trump was posing as a hero of the working class of America. Now, I happen not to believe him. I hope I am wrong, I hope I’m wrong and I hope he does follow through on some of his ideas about creating jobs and raising wages,” he added.
Sanders said that the president-elect was able to tap into real fears of many Americans around the country.
“I think what the punditry and the establishment does not understand [is that] there are a lot of people in this country who are suffering, who are hurting, who are scared to death about tomorrow for their kids, and he tapped into that anxiety,” he said.
Later in the interview, Sanders speculated that the best-case scenario of a Trump presidency is that the Republican president will not be an ideologue.
“I am not sure that … he is not [an ideologue]. His views are all over the place. Which, the good news is, that when millions of people say to him, ‘You know, Mr. Trump, what you are talking about is nuts, let’s move in [the other] direction,’ that he may actually hear those things. That’s the good news,” Sanders said.
However, the Vermont senator added that he still fears that the Republicans around Trump will take advantage of their House and Senate majorities and remove restrictions on campaign finance.
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
