Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, spoke Monday at a rally with Good Jobs Nation, an advocacy organization, in Indianapolis.
The self-described democratic socialist and 2016 presidential candidate emphasized the same values he espoused during the Democratic primary, particularly with raising the minimum wage and preventing U.S. jobs from being outsourced to countries with cheaper labor.
“You can’t make it on nine bucks an hour or twelve bucks an hour,” Sanders said. “In America, if you work forty hours a week, you should not be living in poverty. We need a minimum wage which is a livable wage: fifteen bucks an hour.”
Sanders mentioned the controversy with President Trump and Carrier. Trump told Hoosier supporters at a rally in 2016 that he was certain he could save their jobs at the manufacturer, which had planned to move a significant amount of its workforce to Mexico. Earlier this year, Carrier began the transition for more than 600 of the jobs that the company had planned on outsourcing.
“Not a single job,” Sanders said. “That’s what he said during the campaign and that’s what he promised the workers here in Indiana.”
Sanders said Americans were becoming accustomed to realizing the president was lying. Sanders was joined on stage by Chuck Jones, the recently retired president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, the union that represents employees at companies like Carrier.
“I’m the one that Trump got mean to,” Jones said.
The former union leader publicly feuded with president earlier this year, saying Trump lied about being able to save the manufacturing jobs. Trump responded by criticizing Jones’ performance as a union leader on Twitter.
But on Monday, Jones took his support for Sanders a step further than even Sanders was willing to go. As he described the turn of events that resulted in Trump’s election, the former union leader said he had never seen as much enthusiasm than when Sanders ran for the same office.
“This might rub some people wrong, but I don’t care,” Jones said. “Then when Bernie got cheated out of the race — and that’s what it was — we had Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.”
While some people standing behind Jones clapped and cheers were audible, Sanders stared at the floor, instead of nodding the way he had for other parts of the speech. Jones eventually went back to speaking positively of Sanders and the movement for a livable wage.
In his speech, the senator from Vermont also said he planned to introduce legislation guaranteeing Medicare for all once Congress was back in session. He celebrated the victory of defeating the various Republican-backed health care bills.
“If Europe can do it, if Scandinavia can do it, we can do it in the United States,” Sanders said. “Healthcare is a right, not a privilege.”
