Sanders: ‘Cheap shot’ for Bloomberg to attack ‘democratic socialism’ as ‘communism’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) blasted Michael Bloomberg on the debate stage Wednesday night after the former New York City mayor likened democratic socialism to communism.

Sanders called the remark a “cheap shot” before asking the billionaire candidate where he holds the majority of his assets.

“We’re not going to throw out capitalism. We tried that. Other countries tried that,” Bloomberg told Sanders. “It was called communism, and it just didn’t work.”

Bloomberg basically calls Bernie Sanders’s economic ideas communism. #DemocraticDebate #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/cjEUPwP3XR

— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) February 20, 2020

Sanders took a question from the moderator before saying, “But let’s talk about democratic socialism, not communism, Mr. Bloomberg, that’s a cheap shot.”

He then argued that citizens in Denmark, which former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg had mentioned moments earlier, were living with “a much higher quality of life, in many respects” than the U.S.

Sanders is a proponent of Nordic-style democratic socialism and frequently points to countries such as Denmark and Sweden as inspiration for some of his proposals like “Medicare for All.”