Sanders: We must have ‘serious talk on serious issues’

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) is urging Americans and the media to focus on “serious problems” facing the country ahead of his town hall event Monday on CNN.

“In my view, the media spends too much time treating politics like a baseball game, a personality contest or a soap opera,” he wrote in a CNN opinion piece published Monday. “We need to focus less on polls, fundraisers, gaffes and who’s running for president in four years, and more on the very serious problems facing the American people — problems which get relatively little discussion.”

The news network posted the op-ed hours before Sanders, who lost the 2016 Democratic presidential race to Hillary Clinton and has now emerged as one of GOP President-elect Donald Trump’s most prominent foes on the left, will host a 9 p.m. town hall with CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

In the article, Sanders outlines issues he’s known for: economic inequality, campaign finance reform, climate change, criminal justice reform and immigration, among other topics.

With each issue, Sanders posed several questions.

{mosads}“How do we stop the movement toward oligarchy in our country in which the economic and political life of the United States is increasingly controlled by a handful of billionaires?” Sanders wrote.

He also pressed the need for work to be done on climate change, saying “the debate is over.” Solving this issue, Sanders wrote, will determine “the future of the planet.”

Sanders writes that he will discuss all of these issues at the CNN town hall.