Sen. Bernie Sanders delivered a wholesale rejection of President Donald Trump’s escalating trade wars and combative approach to foreign policy Wednesday night, urging Americans to remember their common humanity.
“We don’t have to hate China. We don’t have to hate other people. Let’s figure out a way to work together,” the Vermont independent said in a CNN town hall, hours after Trump raised his tariffs on Beijing to 125% amid a trade battle ignited by the president.
“The goal has got to be to break down these barriers that separate us as human beings — come together as Americans and come together globally as human beings,” Sanders said.
In the town hall moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Sanders fielded questions from audience members about Trump’s tit-for-tat tariffs, the administration’s cuts to the federal workforce, Democratic struggles with young and Latino voters and more. His answers sought to address anxieties across party lines.
“People by and large are decent human beings who want the best for their kids,” he said.
Sanders, 83, returned to many of the same themes he has emphasized since launching his first presidential run in 2015.
But he did so with a new spin — highlighting Elon Musk’s spending on the 2024 election and his budget-slashing role in Trump’s White House as a totem for what he described as a “horrific drift toward oligarchy and authoritarianism.”
Here are four takeaways from the town hall:
Sanders, a supporter of some tariffs, knocks Trump’s trade policy
Sanders is among a handful of politicians on the left who have long been critical of free trade agreements and supported tariffs. But he also knocked the way Trump has conducted his recent tariff push.
One Republican voter from Virginia asked Sanders how he would assess the effectiveness of tariff strategies in protecting American jobs and what alternatives he would support. The Vermont independent said that he helped lead the effort against past trade deals, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, to “prevent the decimation of communities all over this country.”
“What these trade agreements, in essence, said to corporate America: ‘Hey, no problem. You can throw American workers out on the street. You can go to Mexico, you can go to China and hire people for pennies an hour,’” Sanders said. “And I thought that that was a horrible idea. It was a horrible idea.”
Sanders said tariffs “used selectively” are a good idea.
“But to arbitrarily, out of nowhere, come up with a tariff that they can’t even justify or explain to virtually every country on Earth is absolutely counterproductive,” he said.
Cooper asked Sanders about claims from the White House that Apple iPhones could be manufactured in America, despite assessments from economists that US made phones would cost thousands more. Sanders said he didn’t know if it would be realistic to make the devices in the US, but stressed that Trump’s tariff policies would cause “immediate harm” to working people through higher costs.
Sanders sees binary American choice: Wake up or ‘bow down to our new king’ Trump
Sanders warned that Trump poses a threat to democracy, describing several of the president’s actions targeting those who have opposed him or served as obstacles to his political goals as steps toward authoritarianism.
He highlighted what he described as attempts at intimidation: Targeting media outlets with lawsuits, law firms with executive orders, universities with threats of funding cuts and judges who rule against him with impeachment.
Asked whether he thinks Trump is serious about seeking a third term — which is barred by the Constitution, though Trump recently claimed that “there are methods” through which he could do so — Sanders said: “Yeah, I do.”
“What he wants is power and wealth for his oligarch friends. So nothing would surprise me about Trump,” Sanders said.
The president’s actions add up, Sanders said, to Trump seeking to set aside America’s constitutional separation of powers in favor of a system in which “one guy assumes all of the power.”
“That is not what people fought and died to create in this country,” he said.
Sanders said he hopes “the American people wake up,” and said the president is jeopardizing democracy in ways that go beyond political ideology.
“This is whether or not we remain a free society,” he said. “Or do we all bow down to our new king, President Trump? That is not the kind of nation I think we want to become.”
Sanders makes Musk the new face of oligarchy
Throughout his four decades in politics, Sanders has made pushing back against wealthy Americans’ outsized influence in politics central to his message. Those warnings haven’t changed, but the target has.
Sanders is among the many leaders on the left who’ve targeted Tesla billionaire Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to slash the size of the federal government.
Throughout the night, Musk served as a stand-in for Sanders’ warnings about American oligarchy, the wealthy exploiting American workers and the need for campaign finance reform.
After one voter asked Sanders what his message is to federal workers concerned about DOGE’s cuts, Sanders said the idea that Musk goes around with his “chainsaw,” a reference to Musk’s appearance at a conservative gathering earlier this year, is “outrageous.” He also warned that Musk could cause even broader harm to workers in the private sector.
“If Musk can do this to federal employees, some of whom are in unions … what do you think he’s going to be doing when artificial intelligence and robotics comes for your job?” Sanders said. “They don’t give a damn about you. If this is what they can do to federal employees, think of what they can do to people in the private sector.”
Sanders said that while the government should address bureaucracy, he didn’t think Musk was capable of doing it.
“Am I going to tell you the Veterans Administration is the most efficient organization in the world? No, it’s not,” said Sanders, a former chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. “But you don’t simply – with a chainsaw, if you like – get rid of 83,000 people, then say, ‘Oh, it’s not going to impact the quality of care that our veterans receive.’”
And as Sanders called out what he’s long criticized as America’s “corrupt campaign finance system,” he pointed to Musk’s role in the 2024 presidential election and his threats to fund primary challengers.
“When you talk about people losing faith in the American political system, it’s justified,” Sanders said. “The average American says, ‘Yeah, I got one vote, and Musk can spend hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that a democracy? Why should I vote?’”
Sanders seeks to ‘rally the American people,’ as Democratic leadership questions loom
As furious liberals have looked for ways to voice their opposition to Trump, Sanders is among the few national figures who have sought to answer the bell — drawing sizable crowds to rallies across the country this winter and spring.
But Sanders is nearly 10 years older than he was when his “political revolution” formed during the 2016 Democratic primary. And it’s not clear who will follow him — as the leader of the progressive movement, and as the voice channeling anti-Trump furor as the 2026 midterm elections approach.
Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, didn’t directly address those questions Wednesday night. He acknowledged splits within the Democratic Party over how to take on Trump, and argued for a combative approach.
“Within the Democratic caucus in the House and the Senate, you have people with different political persuasions,” he said. “There are some of us who from day one have understood that we’ve got to stand up and rally the American people to fight against this horrendous agenda, which at the end of the day is really significantly about giving massive tax breaks to the top 1%.”
Sanders name-checked just one other Democrat: New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has appeared at rallies alongside him in recent weeks.
He said he is trying to “rally the American people to tell their members of Congress, guess what? You want to get reelected, you’re not going to vote to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut programs that working-class people need.”
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