Sen. Bernie Sander, I-Vt., Sunday described President Donald Trump as a “fraud” and a hypocrite for appealing to the little guy and then packing his Cabinet with billionaires, moving to undo some banking regulations and appointing advisers inclined to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Sanders told CNN’s “State of the Union” he doesn’t “mean to be disrespectful [but] this guy is a fraud.”
“This guy ran for president of the United States saying ‘I, Donald Trump, I’m going to take on Wall Street. These guys are getting away with murder.’ Then suddenly he appoints all these billionaires,” said Sanders, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination. He singled out the appointment Treasury Secretary-designate Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive who also ran a mortgage bank that foreclosed on tens of thousands of borrowers during the financial crisis.
Trump signed an executive order Friday, ordering a review of U.S. financial regulatory laws and regulations, and said he expects to cut “a lot out of Dodd-Frank,” the post-recession legislation designed to prevent the excesses that triggered the downturn.
“Because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine, that had nice businesses, they just can’t borrow money … because the banks just won’t let them borrow because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank,” Trump said in explaining his action.
“Man, this guy [Trump], he’s a good showman, I’ll give him that. He’s a good TV guy,” Sanders said, noting that during the campaign, Trump pledged not to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid and railed against Wall Street.
“I think he is going to sell out the middle class and the working class of this country,” said Sanders, a strong advocate of Wall Street reform. “He told us, in fact, it’s in the Republican platform, he’s going to bring back Glass-Steagall, we’re going to be dividing up commercial banks from investment banks to insurance companies. Then he has all of the big Wall Street guys on his side, and now he is working for Wall Street.”
“You have a president who, I think, in a totally fraudulent campaign said, ‘I’m going to stand up for the working people.’ Look at his Cabinet, we never had more billionaires in a Cabinet in the history of this country. Look at his appointees. These are people who are going to go after the needs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor. That is called hypocrisy.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sunday called President Donald Trump a “fraud” and a hypocrite. Above, Sanders addresses rally on Trump’s travel ban in Washington, Jan. 30, 2017. Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters
Aside from Mnuchin, the billionaires selected by Trump for his Cabinet include Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who headed Exxon Mobil Corp.; Commerce Secretary-designate Wilbur Ross, an acquirer of steel mills, coal mines and other heavy industries, and Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos, whose father-in-law was a co-founder of Amway.
Trump’s pick for health secretary, Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., is a longtime opponent of Medicare and also has proposed charging the poor more for Medicaid, and Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., Trump’s choice for budget director favors raising the retirement age for Social Security to 70 and implementing means-testing to qualify for Medicare.
Sanders also urged congressional Republicans to stand up against Trump’s push toward authoritarian leadership, saying the members of the military “did not stand up and fight and die to lead us” in that direction.
“We are a democracy, not a one-man show. We are not another Trump enterprise. It’s called the United States of America. We’re not a business run by Mr. Trump,” Sanders said.
Sanders took issue with Trump’s description of U.S. District Judge James Robart, who issued a court order blocking Trump’s executive order barring immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, as a “so-called” judge.
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