Bernie Sanders claims Kamala Harris paved way for Trump win by not focusing on 'working people'
WASHINGTON, DC: Senator Bernie Sanders took a sharp jab at former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, arguing that it failed to connect with working-class voters and helped pave the way for Donald Trump’s victory.
Speaking on ‘The Tim Dillon Show’ on Wednesday, October 22, to promote his new book ‘Fighting Oligarchy’, Sanders praised Harris as “an incredibly intelligent, focused person” but said her campaign was not centered on the needs of working-class Americans.
Sanders says ‘money in politics’ to blame
Bernie Sanders said, “I ran against Kamala back in 2020, and I know her, not close, but I know her well, and she’s an incredibly intelligent, focused person.”
“I worked as hard as I could. I ran all over the country to try to get her elected,” he added.
Sanders argued that the failure stemmed from the outsized influence of wealthy donors and corporate interests.
“The reason that she lost that election gets back to... money in politics,” he said.
“Kamala did not run a campaign focused on the needs of the working class, didn’t run a campaign focused on healthcare, on economics, and raising the minimum wage, on paid family and medical leave, on housing, on all of the issues that working people are struggling with right now,” Sanders stated.
Dillon presses on transparency and Biden’s decline
Host Tim Dillon raised broader concerns about transparency in the 2024 race, questioning why there was no Democratic primary after former President Joe Biden dropped out and why the public was kept in the dark about his mental fitness.
“That’s a huge problem,” Dillon highlighted.
On the other hand, Sanders urged Democrats to refocus their energy on economic justice.
“We’re not going to win elections if we ignore the everyday struggles of working families,” he said.
Kamala Harris blames her 2024 defeat on lack of time
Kamala Harris said that one of the biggest reasons she lost the 2024 election to President Donald Trump was the lack of time to mount a campaign.
“There are many factors, I think, that played into the outcome of that election,” Harris said during an appearance on 'The View' on September 23.
“But I think probably one of the biggest, in my mind, is we just didn’t have enough time,” she confessed.
Her new memoir, '107 Days', is a reference to the length of her campaign after then-President Joe Biden dropped out. It details the difficulties of taking on a seasoned rival in such a short window.
“Biden decides not to run. The sitting vice president then takes the mantle, running against a former president of the United States who had been running for ten years, with 107 days until the election,” Harris said.
She went on to call the 2024 race “the closest presidential race in the 21st century.”
Despite raising and spending a staggering $1.5 billion in just 15 weeks, Harris lost the popular vote, the Electoral College, and all seven battleground states to Trump.
