President Trump called Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders a “communist” during his pre-game Super Bowl interview.
Fox News personality Sean Hannity asked Trump, 73, to do a “lightning round” interview game on Sunday, during which the president said the first word that came to mind after hearing an individual’s name. When Hannity said Sanders’s name, Trump said, “Communist.”
“I think he’s a communist,” Trump said. “Look, I think of communism when I think of Bernie. You could say socialist, but didn’t he get married in Moscow? That’s wonderful. Moscow’s wonderful.”
He added, “You don’t necessarily think in terms of marriage Moscow, and it’s wonderful. I’m not knocking it. But I think Bernie sort of as a socialist but far beyond a socialist. At least he’s true to what he believes, that’s one thing.”
Hannity corrected Trump to explain that Sanders, 78, married in the United States but honeymooned in the Soviet Union after marrying Jane Sanders in 1988.
The Washington Examiner reported last May on Sanders’s ties with domestic far-left groups. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Sanders maintained close relationships with various Marxist political parties and littered his mayoral office in Burlington, Vermont, with newspapers and pamphlets from revolutionary organizations.
In 1980 and 1984, Sanders endorsed SWP presidential candidates Andrew Pulley and Mel Mason. Their presidential platforms included pledges to abolish the military and a nationalization of “virtually all private industry.”
The SWP often pointed to countries such as Nicaragua and Cuba as inspiration for policies the party would like to see in the U.S. Sanders was later investigated by the FBI to his ties to the group, although charges were never brought.
Trump went on to rip several others, including Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whom he deemed a “fairy tale” and referenced the “Pocahontas” nickname he has given her. He blasted Michael Bloomberg as “little” and claimed he needed a box to stand on to be as tall as other candidates during the upcoming presidential debates, something Bloomberg’s campaign passionately denied. He also called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “very confused, very nervous woman.”
The president’s criticism came just one day before the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3. Sanders has taken the lead in recent polls in the state, but he still trails former Vice President Joe Biden nationwide.
