Former Swedish prime minister dunks on Bernie Sanders gushing over Soviet Union

“Bernie Sanders was lucky to be able to get to the Soviet Union in 1988 and praise all its stunning socialist achievements before the entire system and empire collapsed under the weight of its own spectacular failures,” Bildt tweeted.

Sanders, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, can be seen in the video complimenting some of the public programs in Moscow, including the public transportation and youth programs.

During his 2016 campaign for president, Sanders focused on highlighting the socialist programs of Scandinavian countries, including Sweden and Denmark, as a model for the U.S., particularly for government-funded healthcare, free college, and free childcare. Sanders has faced heavy opposition when trying to push these socialist ideas. Among other criticisms, some detractors argue that such a pricey endeavor would be unrealistic in the U.S., which has a population of roughly 325 million people.

The critical tweet from Bildt did not go unnoticed.

“Yikes, quite a burn from the former prime minister of Sweden — a country that @BernieSanders often praises as a model for the US,” Glenn Kessler, fact-checker for the Washington Post, tweeted.

Bildt’s harsh criticism was put into perspective by Waleed Shahid, a former staffer for Sanders.

“Former Swedish prime minister Carl [Bildt] is from Sweden’s fiscally conservative, center-right ‘Moderate Party,'” tweeted Shahid, who is now a spokesman for Justice Democrats after working on the campaign of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. “It makes sense why he would be putting out oppo on Sanders considering that skyrocketing inequality enabled by oligarchy and plutocracy is a global development.”