Bernie Sanders blames election loss on Kamala Harris listening to billionaires over the working class

Independent

a day ago

Bernie Sanders has blamed Kamala Harris for her election loss to Donald Trump, saying she chose to cosy up to billionaires instead of addressing the issues faced by working-class Americans.
The 83-year-old independent senator and former Democratic presidential candidate said while Joe Biden has faced plenty of criticism for the election loss, it was ultimately Harris's fault.
'A lot of the people are saying it was Joe Biden 's fault that Kamala Harris lost the election … not true. It was the fault of Kamala Harris and her consultants,' he said in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today program.
'They did not run a campaign designed to speak to the American working class.'
Sanders said he 'absolutely' believed Harris could have won, but she did not talk about the needs of working-class Americans.
'I ran all over the country trying to elect Kamala Harris and beg them talk to the needs of the working class, talk about raising the minimum wage to a living wage, talk about real health care reform, talk about building the kinds of massive amounts of housing that we need, putting checks on landlords,' Sanders said. 'But they used their billionaire friends.'
He said Harris spent more time with Republican conservative Liz Cheney 'almost than with anybody else', and billionaire businessman and 'Shark Tank' shark Mark Cuban was a vocal supporter and spokesperson.
'What is that message out to working class people?' Sanders said.
'To my mind, that was a campaign that absolutely should have been winnable. But it gets back to the fundamental issue that that campaign was also run by consultants and billionaires.'
He continued: 'And bottom line here is the Democrats have to answer a very simple question: which side are you on? And that answer has not yet been made.'
Sanders, who has been running a 'Fighting oligarchy tour' with popular Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that has drawn huge crowds across the United States, said the core issue in America today is that there was more income and wealth inequality in the country than ever before.
He said the reason that Trump won the election was because the Democratic Party had not responded to that economic crisis.
'The average person out there who is working very long hours has less holiday time than many Europeans has, can't afford healthcare, can't afford to send their kids to college, childcare is a disaster in the United States,' he said.
'That person looks to Washington D.C. and says, 'hey what are you doing for me, I'm suffering, I'm hurting, and everything being equal … my kid is going to do worse than me'.'