Speaking at Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network Conference on Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), running for president, launched a fusillade of epithets targeting President Trump, calling him a racist, sexist, homophobic xenophobe who is a religious bigot. Sanders started by citing “institutional racism” in America, seemingly blaming the electoral losses of Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum and Ben Jealous on that, then segued to attacking the president. He started:
And in that last election, we saw great campaigns run for governor by Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum and Ben Jealous. They lost, but Mandela Barnes and Garland Gilchrist became the first elected black lieutenant governors in Wisconsin and Michigan: real progress. So we have made some progress, but clearly all of us recognize that we have a long way to go to end the institutional racism which permeates almost every aspect of American society. And that is the bad news that keeps us up at night.
Sanders then repeatedly stated that “it gives me no pleasure” to attack President Trump. but what the heck, what’s a guy to do? He ranted:
And it gives me no pleasure and I say this sincerely, I think sometimes the media doesn’t believe that. It gives me no pleasure to tell you that we have a president today who is a racist, who is a sexist, who is a homophobe, who is a xenophobe and who is a religious bigot. I wish I did not have to say that, but that is the damn truth, and we gotta say it.
The Daily Wire noted after last November’s elections that Sanders told the Daily Beast that racism was why Abrams in Gillum lost their gubernatorial races in Georgia and Florida, as he stated, “I think you know there are a lot of white folks out there who are not necessarily racist who felt uncomfortable for the first time in their lives about whether or not they wanted to vote for an African-American. I think next time around, by the way, it will be a lot easier for them to do that.”
Sanders is just fine throwing stones as long as they aren’t directed at him; in April 2017, he tweeted, “How many yachts do billionaires need? How many cars do they need? Give us a break. You can’t have it all.”
Yet prior to that remark, as The Daily Wire has reported, in 2016, Sanders purchased a third home with his wife, according to Vanity Fair. The summer home, on the shore of Lake Champlain, cost around $600,000 and was purchased using the funds from selling a home owned by Sanders’ wife’s family. The Daily Wire also reported that despite Sanders’ consistent protestations of the wealth inequity in America and his rants about climate change, former Clinton staffers told Politico that Sanders “repeatedly requested and received the use of a carbon-spewing private jet for himself and his traveling staff when he served as a surrogate campaigner for Hillary Clinton.”
That prompted the former director of rapid response for the Clinton campaign, Zac Petkanas, to snap, “I’m not shocked that while thousands of volunteers braved the heat and cold to knock on doors until their fingers bled in a desperate effort to stop Donald Trump, his Royal Majesty King Bernie Sanders would only deign to leave his plush D.C. office or his brand new second home on the lake if he was flown around on a cushy private jet like a billionaire master of the universe.”