Vermont Senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during a CNN town hall event Monday night refused to answer whether America will be a socialist country if he is elected president in 2020.
He deflected whether he would “hold true” President Trump’s statement during the State of the Union address that “America would never be a socialist country.”
“Will you hold that true if you’re elected president?” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Sanders.
“If I am elected president, we will have a nation in which all people have health care as a right, whether Trump likes it or not,” Sanders replied. “We are going to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. We are going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage of at least $15 bucks an hour. And whether Trump likes it or not, when I talk about human rights … it means that our kids and our grandchildren have the human right to grow up in a planet that is healthy and habitable.”
He went on to criticize Trump on climate change and declared that the U.S. must “go forward boldly and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels.”
Sanders is currently under fire for promoting himself as a democratic socialist fighting for economic and environmental justice meanwhile owning multiple houses, taking in over $1 million in income annually, and traveling by private jet.