Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 presidential candidate, slammed President Trump while campaigning in Ohio and Pennsylvania Sunday, saying Trump lied to working families.
“The biggest lie was that he was going to stand up for working families and take on the establishment,” Sanders said at a Pittsburgh rally, according to The Associated Press. “That was a monstrous lie.”
While campaigning at the recently shuttered General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, Sanders said Trump did not do enough for workers and gave GM massive federal contracts, the AP noted.
{mosads}“If you want a federal contract paid for by taxpayers, treat your workers with respect and dignity. No more paying your workers inadequate wages while you provide CEO’s with multimillion-dollar parachutes, no more taking away health care benefits, no more denying workers the right to form a union,” Sanders said, according to the news service.
Since GM announced the plant’s closure last year, Trump has attacked a local union leader, blaming him for not doing more to keep the facility open.
“G.M. let our Country down, but other much better car companies are coming into the U.S. in droves,” Trump wrote. “I want action on Lordstown fast. Stop complaining and get the job done!”
Early in the campaign, Sanders has gone after Trump for what he says are empty promises during Trump’s first two years in the White House.
Sanders is hoping his workers-first message and early visits to Midwest battleground states will help turn them blue in 2020. Trump swept the Rust Belt in 2016, winning both Pennsylvania and Ohio on his way to the White House.
Sanders fared well against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in most of the Midwest in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, but lost Pennsylvania to the party’s eventual nominee by 12 points.