Sanders: Trump supporters should back me

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday made an appeal to supporters of Donald Trump to back his candidacy for president instead.

{mosads}The Vermont senator said his and Trump’s followers are mad about the same issues, but he — unlike Trump — has a plan to solve those problems.

“Look, many of Trump’s supporters are working-class people, and they’re angry,” Sanders said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And they’re angry because they’re working longer hours for lower wages. They’re angry because their jobs have left this country and gone to China or other low-wage countries.”

“And what I’m suggesting is that what Trump has done with some success has taken that anger, taken those fears, which are legitimate, and converted them into anger against Mexicans, anger against Muslims,” he added.

“And in my view, that is not the way we’re going to address the major problems facing our country.”

Sanders said Trump would only exacerbate these problems by offering generous tax breaks to the wealthy and demonizing minorities.

“In fact, he has said that he thinks wages in America are too high,” he said of Trump. “But he does want to give hundreds of billions in tax breaks to the top three-tenths of 1 percent.”

“So I think for his working-class supporters, I think we can make the case that if we really want to address the issues that people are concerned about … that we need policies that bring us together … and create a middle class that works for all of us, rather than an economy that works for just a few,” he added.