Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that “anybody who is not dumb, deaf or blind” could see President Donald Trump was moving toward an oligarchy.
Partial transcript as follows:
JONATHAN KARL: So, what are you trying to accomplish with this tour?
SANDERS: I’m trying to make it clear to the people throughout the world and throughout our own country, that the American people are not going to sit idly by and allow Trump establish an oligarchic form of government, where Musk and other billionaires are running our government. And we’re not going to sit back and allow him to form an authoritarian form of society, undermining the Constitution, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and undoing what the — you know, what the founding fathers of this country did in the 1790s, separation of powers, making sure that no one person had an extraordinary amount of power, and that is precisely what Trump is trying to do. He wants it all. Doesn’t want Congress, he doesn’t want the media, he doesn’t want the judiciary. He wants all of the power; we cannot allow him to have that.
KARL: Well, I hear you telling people out there, fight back. What do you mean, though? How do these people — how do they fight back?
SANDERS: Well, that’s the question. We’re working on it right now. But I think simply, first of all, coming here and showing the world that Americans are not going to sit back and take what Trump is doing is a good step forward. But obviously, what we need to do is what neither political party is capable of doing right now, and that is develop a strong grassroots movement prepared to run candidates, prepared to stand up and question candidates, demand responsibility from their elected officials to stand with working families and not just the 1 percent.
KARL: I’ve been covering you for a long, long time. I’ve heard you railing against millionaires and billionaires for a long time.
SANDERS: Hey, guess what?
KARL: Is it different?
SANDERS: Turns out a few other people are catching on to that, right?
KARL: Yeah.
SANDERS: I have been talking for many years about this country moving toward an oligarchy. And I think anybody who is not dumb, deaf or blind, is seeing precisely what is happening. Trump’s inaugural, right behind him, three wealthiest guys in America. You know, Lincoln talked about a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Remember? Well, we got a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class. That’s what we have.
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