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Sanders jokes about topless protester at rally

by Jesse Byrnes - 03/22/16 12:42 PM ET

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders this week joked about a topless woman who showed up at one of his rallies recently to protest Republican rival Donald Trump.

“Well, I was trying very hard to get every detail,” the Vermont senator joked during an interview with Phoenix-area radio station KTAR when asked if he could read the text on the woman’s chest.

{mosads}”No, just kidding,” Sanders chuckled as the male radio hosts erupted into laughter.

“No, actually I was trying to focus on a couple of other things,” Sanders continued, trying to stifle another laugh as he pivoted to discuss campaign issues of income inequality.

A woman who tried unsuccessfully to get into one of Trump’s rallies in Arizona over the weekend opted to show up at Sanders’s rally in Phoenix on Saturday instead.

The words “stop fascism” were revealed on her back and “hate speech is not free speech” were marked on her chest, as she stood on someone’s back, interrupting Sanders’s rally.

During his radio interview Monday first highlighted by BuzzFeed, Sanders blasted Trump’s proposals on illegal immigration and his harsh rhetoric on Muslims and other minorities.

Sanders said the businessman would be a “disaster” for the U.S. and “an international embarrassment” if he became president. His comments come ahead of voting Tuesday in Arizona.

A Bernie fan who earlier protested Trump took her shirt off & jumped on a man’s shoulders at tonight’s Sanders rally pic.twitter.com/tGzCiOWudB

— Danny Freeman (@DannyEFreeman) March 20, 2016