Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that President Joe Biden was “old” and “not articulate as he once was,” so Democrats have to focus on policy.
Partial transcript as follows:
ROBERT COSTA: We’re joined now by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. He joins us from Burlington, Vermont. Senator Sanders, Good morning. You just heard from some Democratic voters in those battleground states, you’re a leading voice on the left in this country. Does President Biden now have your full support?
SANDERS: President Biden can clearly defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in the history of this country. And the choice is quite clear. You got in Trump, somebody wants to take away a woman’s right to control her body, who thinks that climate change is a hoax, And it has turned his back on the working class of this country. And on the other side, you have Joe Biden, first president in American history to walk a picket line; we have put more money into fighting climate change than any time in the history of this country; we’re rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. But this I do want to say and where I am critical of the Biden campaign: it’s one thing to talk about your record over the last three-and-a-half years, which is a strong record, but the American people are hurting. Sixty percent of our people living paycheck to paycheck. Twenty five percent of elderly people are trying to get by on $15,000 a year or less. The American people want an agenda for the next four years that speaks to the needs of the working class of this country. So frankly, I don’t think the President has brought that agenda forward. He has got to say, I am prepared to take on corporate greed, massive income and wealth inequality and stand with the working class in this country. He does that, he’s going to win, and win big.
COSTA: So that’s your advice for President Biden, you want him to stand with working voters, talk about labor, talk about the minimum wage and those issues. But politically, can he count on you to be on the campaign trail for him this summer and fall? Can he count on your support?
SANDERS: I’ve already done six events in Wisconsin, we’ve been to New York, I’ve been to Ohio. And let’s- let me say this, and maybe the most important point, Bob, I want to make this morning: what we’re talking about now is not a Grammy Award contest for best singer. Biden is old, he is not as articulate as he once was. I wish he could jump up the steps on Air Force One. He can’t. What we have got to focus on is policy. Whose policies have and will benefit the vast majority of the people in this country? Who wants the guts to take on corporate America? Who is talking about expanding Medicare so we cover dental, hearing and vision? Who’s talking about raising the cap on the taxes that people pay into Social Security so we can raise social security benefits and extend the life of Social Security for 75 years? Who’s talking about a permanent child tax credit to cut childhood poverty in America by 50%? Those are the issues he’s talked about. He’s got to bring them up in the floor. He’s got to promise the American people that if they give him a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House, reelect him, he’s gonna do that in the first 100 days. That’s what I think the American people want.
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