All aboard the Bernie train: Sanders kicks off unity tour in style with stirring speech

First stops on Sanders and Tom Perez's eight-state trip: Portland and Maine

Published April 18, 2017 7:00PM (EDT)

Bernie Sanders   (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
Bernie Sanders (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

AlterNet

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) kicked off his multi-state unity tour with new Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez in style Monday, delivering a rousing speech in Portland, Maine.

"I think what you're going to see are people who voted for Trump because he said he was going to stand up for working families, but now he supports disastrous health care proposals, which will throw 24 million people off of heath care, and $300 billion in tax breaks for the very rich," Sanders (I-VT) had told MSNBC's Chris Hayes in a preview last week.

The tour, aptly titled "Come Together and Fight Back," includes visits in eight states, Maine, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and Utah. Of the eight, only Nevada and Maine voted for Hillary Clinton in the past presidential election.

The Vermont senator's tour mission is addressing voters still feeling disenfranchised by the DNC as he helps lay the groundwork for the Democratic Party's 50-state strategy.

In Portland, Sanders struck a familiar chord as he railed against “the greed of the billionaire class... and corporate America," ripping Trump for enacting policies that leave millions behind.

"Trump told the American people... 'I am a different type of Republican, I am not going to cut social security, Medicare and Medicaid, I am going to drain the swamp, I am going to take on Wall Street... I'm going to be working 24/7," Sanders bellowed.

Trump had also vowed to lower the cost of prescription drugs, renegotiate failed trade policies, reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and "raise the minimum wage to at least ten bucks an hour," he added. "He never had any intention of standing up for working families."

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By Alexandra Rosenmann



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