Potential presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders says the United States may be “at a tipping point” at which candidates running for major offices can’t win unless they acquiesce to the wishes of billionaire donors and corporate America at the expense of the middle class.
“We may have reached the point, the tipping point, where candidates who are fighting for the working class and the middle class of this country may not be able to do it anymore because of the power of the billionaire class,” the liberal Vermont independent told CNN’s “New Day” show on Monday. “That’s the simple reality.”
Sanders, who is openly contemplating a run for the White House in 2016, said his candidacy would be centered on “taking on the billionaire class and Wall Street and the Koch brothers.” And while admitting such a strategy is politically dangerous, he suggested a populist movement possibly can still work in the modern political landscape.
“If I do [run], I want to do it well,” he said. “If I do it, I know that I will need millions of people engaged in a real grassroots campaign to take on big money and to fight for an agenda, a jobs program, raising the minimum wage, pay equity for women, dealing with climate change, all of these things.”
Sanders, who has been traveling the country in recent months to gauge public interest in his potential candidacy, said he still must “ascertain what kind of support there is out there” for him.
