Now that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has all but ended his candidacy for president with his endorsement of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it’s time to look back fondly on the 11 dumbest things he has ever said.
1. Sanders thinks that global warming is going to kill everybody.
In October’s Democratic debate, Sanders gave a rather outrageous quote regarding global warming:
“Today, the scientific community is virtually unanimous: climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, and we have a moral responsibility to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy and leave this planet a habitable planet for our children and our grandchildren.”
This statement was so over-the-top that two scientists who are believers in man-made climate change told The Daily Wire that Sanders’ statement did not reflect what the science actually says.
“There are two ways to interpret ‘habitable,’ and in that context it could mean that life can’t survive,” Princeton’s Michael Oppenheimer, who has worked extensively with the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the Wire. “That is not a prescription that most scientists would agree with, or description.”
2. Sanders thinks that Fidel Castro is a swell guy.
Back in 1985, Sanders gushed about Castro in an interview:
“In 1961, [America] invaded Cuba, and everybody was totally convinced that Castro was the worst guy in the world,” said Sanders.
“All the Cuban people were going to rise up in rebellion against Fidel Castro. They forgot that he educated their kids, gave their kids health care, totally transformed society,” he said.
“You know, not to say Fidel Castro and Cuba are perfect – they are certainly not – but just because Ronald Reagan dislikes these people does not mean to say the people in these nations feel the same,” continued Sanders.
Sanders’ soaring rhetoric about the communist dictator crashes and burns in the face of Cuba’s grim reality: Castro turned Cuba into a country mired in poverty and misery, as The Daily Wire explains here.
3. Sanders is off on the number of Gazans killed in the 2014 Israel-Hamas conflict by just a little bit…
In an interview with the New York Daily News, Sanders blithely asserted that 10,000 Gazans were killed during the conflict, then after heavy pressure he attempted to walk it back by saying, “I did not know the exact number, but it turns out that, according to the United Nations, over 2,000 civilians were killed, and some 10,000 people were wounded.”
The Daily Wire‘s Josh Yasmeh explains how Sanders’s numbers are nowhere near reality here.
4. Sanders keeps calling CNN host Wolf Blitzer “Jake.”
And he does so five times in this interview. After the third time, Blitzer corrected Sanders, who proceeded to call Blitzer “Jake” two more times.
5. Sanders has “serious problems” with Uber and falsely claims that the ride-sharing service is “unregulated.”
These “serious problems” apparently weren’t enough to stop Sanders from frequently using Uber.
6. Sander thinks that a 65-degree temperature on Christmas Eve is evidence of man-made global warming.
Nobody can recall a Christmas Eve where the temperature was 65 degrees. Why is it that we’re not effectively addressing climate change?
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 28, 2015
Twitter is relentless in tearing him apart for his stupidity:
That’s b/c no one is alive from 1889 when the NYC temp also hit 65F on Christmas. https://t.co/ZnkggMPTKj https://t.co/8xfSxW3dUc
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) December 28, 2015
RE https://t.co/eIM3PjoUmy It was 62° in Burlington, VT on Christmas Day in 1964. 80° in Baton Rouge, LA on Christmas Eve 1970.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) December 28, 2015
@SenSanders come on–I believe in climate change but these temps are El Niño and Arctic oscillation.
— TK (@pigtailsflying) December 28, 2015
Sanders doesn’t seem to be very well-versed on climatology.
7. Sanders still thinks the New York subway uses tokens.
When talking to the New York Daily News editorial board, Sanders was unaware that people now use metrocards to get on.
“What do you mean, ‘How do you ride the subway these days?'” Sanders cluelessly said. “You get a token and you get on.”
The subway made the change from tokens to metrocards in 2008, and Sanders told the editorial board he last used the subway in 2015.
8. Sanders doesn’t understand how collateral works.
It makes no sense that students and their parents pay higher interest rates for college than they pay for car loans or housing mortgages.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 15, 2015
Collateral is defined as “a property or other assets that a borrower offers a lender to secure a loan.” For instance, in the case of a mortgage “the lender can take possession of the home through a process called foreclosure and sell it to get back the principal it lent you,” according to Investopedia.
With this in mind, people rightly pointed out on Twitter:
.@BernieSanders Cars & houses can be repossessed. You can’t repossess a diploma. It’s called an unsecured loan. #Econ101
— Mike aka Proof (@ProofBlog) October 15, 2015
@BernieSanders Actually, given the default rates on student loans vs. car and home loans, it makes perfect sense. #itscalledeconomics
— Mark Youngkin (@mayoungkin) October 15, 2015
9. Sanders doesn’t understand how the Supreme Court works.
Any Supreme Court nominee of mine will make overturning Citizens United one of their first decisions.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 22, 2016
This tweet is egregiously false to the point that even the leftist ThinkProgress blog had to call Sanders out on it:
“The problem with this tweet, however, is that it betrays a serious misunderstanding of how the Supreme Court operates. Unlike a legislature, which is free to take up or ignore particular issues at their leisure, court cases must clear numerous procedural hoops before they are decided, and this is doubly true for the Supreme Court of the United States. In reality, it would be nearly impossible for Sanders’s nominee to ensure that any particular case was “one of their first decisions.”
10. Sanders believes the conspiracy theory that Sandra Bland was murdered by racist cops.
Back in December, Sanders said in a statement, “There’s no doubt in my mind that she, like too many African-Americans who die in police custody, would be alive today if she were a white woman.”
Problem is, the evidence is quite clear that Bland’s death was due to suicide.
11. Sanders wants the U.S. to be more like China.
China – not exactly seen as a model when it comes to human rights – provides 14 weeks of paid maternity leave. The US provides zero.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 19, 2015
Actor James Woods completely dropped the hammer on Sanders in one epic tweet:
China has notoriously killed female infants for population control, you utter moron. #ChinaGendercide https://t.co/GBNSaNNJaC
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 19, 2015