Bernie Sanders Accuses Trump Of 'Scapegoating Powerless Minorities' To Further His Political Agenda

During a rally on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke about President Donald Trump's relationship with billionaires.

Transcript

00:00Now as Delia and Robert told you, we are now living under the most dangerous

00:08president in perhaps the history of this country. This is a demagogue whose

00:17function in life is to serve the oligarchy and to try to divide us up. Now

00:24when Trump was inaugurated I had the unpleasure of being right in the front

00:32row. I somehow got shoved into the front row. Maybe nobody else wanted to go there

00:37so they pushed me there. And I heard this horrific speech. But I want you all to

00:43remember because this is the essence of what Trumpism is about. Seated right

00:48behind Donald Trump were the three wealthiest people in this country, Mr.

00:55Musk, Mr. Bezos and Mr. Zuckerberg. Seated right behind them were 13 other

01:07billionaires who Trump had nominated to head up major federal agencies. And as I

01:16was as I was listening to this rather horrific speech, I really did think I

01:23was thinking about American history and I was thinking about Abraham Lincoln at

01:29Gettysburg. And some of you will remember a few days after that terrible battle

01:34where thousands of Union soldiers died to end the abomination of slavery. President

01:42Lincoln goes to the battlefield. People just died a few days before. And he looks

01:47out at the assembled crowd and in so many words he says, you know, these guys did

01:53not die in vain. They died so that we will continue to have a government of the

02:01billionaire class by the billionaire class and for the people. And when I was listening to

02:19Trump and thinking about Abraham Lincoln, I was thinking that this guy is giving us a

02:24government of the billionaire class by the billionaire class and for the billionaire

02:33class. Now, I trust that I know that all of you understand how demagogues function. And Trump

02:45is not original. It goes on around the world and it has gone on historically. The way demagogues succeed

02:53is by dividing people up and by scapegoating powerless minorities. All right. That's how

03:04it's always been. It's been true in this country. It's true all over the world. Europe, it was Jews

03:10and gypsies. In this country, it was gay people, black people, Latino people. Today, it is trans

03:16people and the undocumented. So that's the strategy. I mean, it's a well thought out strategy. So instead

03:26of addressing the serious crises facing the country and say, all right, we got a crisis here, we got a

03:35crisis here. How do we work together to resolve those crises? What a demagogue like Trump does is say,

03:42forget about the healthcare crisis, forget about climate, forget about education, forget about

03:47housing. We're not going to talk about that. We're going to talk about how we hate this group of

03:52people and that group of people. And the antidote to that, which we must bring forth, we must create,

04:01is an understanding that if we do not all stand together, we're all going to go down together.