Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) assured attendees at one of his “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies Saturday they are “making Donald Trump and Elon Musk very nervous” as he laid out a string of grievances with the current Washington administration.
The 83-year-old senator spoke to his supporters as they gathered in the Gloria Molina Grand Park in Los Angeles alongside guests including politicians, union representatives and musical acts.
They all took to the stage before speeches by Sanders and Democrat representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“There are some 36,000 of you, the largest rally that we have ever had,” Sanders told the cheering crowd. “Your presence here today is making Donald Trump and Elon Musk very nervous.”
The octogenarian self-described socialist, an independent who has never been a member of the Democratic Party, has been attracting crowds over the past two months on his nationwide “fighting oligarchy” tour.
SHOTS FIRED: @MichaelRapaport says Bernie Sanders' ancestors “would be disgusted” by his opposition to arming Israel in its current conflict with Hamas — even invoking the deaths of his Polish relatives in the Holocaust. https://t.co/pyC1FAdg1k
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 31, 2025
Folk rock veteran Neil Young for his part led the L.A. crowd in chanting “Take America Back!” while he played the electric guitar.
Singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers dubbed the event “Berniechella,” a nod to the annual Coachella music festival taking place in the Californian desert.
AFP reports the senator from Vermont addressed a litany of perceived grievances, including Trump’s massive cuts to government funding and threats to healthcare and research as he drained the swamp from Washington.
Mentions of Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla and X, drew boos from the crowd.
The self-made billionaire has been tasked by Trump with dramatically reducing government spending, and is for many Sanders supporters a symbol of the corrupting influence of wealth in politics.
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“We are living in a moment where a handful of billionaires control the economic and political life of our country,” Sanders said on Saturday.
Trump is moving the United States “rapidly toward an authoritarian form of society,” he said.
The “Fighting Oligarchy” tour is mostly destined for Republican majority areas but a decision was made to make an exception for deep-blue L.A.
Sanders’ website claims the tour has been attended by 107,981 people across seven states so far, and that livestreams of the tour have been watched more than five million times.
Upcoming stops have just been scheduled later in April for the California cities of Bakersfield and Auburn, plus Salt Lake City; Nampa, Idaho; and Missoula, Montana.
