Bernie Sanders Calls Trump ‘Racist’ on MLK Day

Senator Bernie Sanders again called President Trump a racist on Monday as the nation celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, repeating a sentiment he first expressed in November.

“I must tell you, it gives me no pleasure to tell you that we now have a president of the United States who is a racist,” Sanders said at an MLK Day town hall at Zion Baptist Church in Columbia, S.C. “Today we say to Donald Trump, ‘We are not going back to more bigotry, discrimination, and division.’ Instead of bringing us together as Americans, he has purposely and aggressively attempted to divide us up by the color of our skin, by our gender, by our nationality, by our religion. and by our sexual orientation.”

Back in November, Sanders branded the president a racist in a speech to Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.

“We must be honest and straightforward and say that we have a president who is a racist, a president who is a sexist, a president who is a homophobe. A president who is a xenophobe and a president who is a religious bigot. And it gives me no joy to tell you that,” Sanders said in that speech.

Several other Democrats have agreed that Trump is racist, including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and John Lewis of Georgia, the latter of whom is a veteran civil-rights activist.

The president has disputed charges that he is bigoted against minorities.

“I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed, that I can tell you,” Trump said in January a year ago.

More from National Review