Bernie Sanders sets conditions for supporting Biden in US presidential election
"Biden and Democrats can win this election if they address the needs of the working class," Sanders said.
PTI
WASHINGTON: Leader of the progressive movement, Senator Bernie Sanders, set a series of conditions on Sunday for supporting incumbent US President Joe Biden in the November presidential election.
"We need a strong agenda that benefits working families and not just wealthy campaign contributors. The American people want change. It will either be the change of Trump's reactionary and xenophobic policies, or change that benefits working families," Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, said in a statement.
Highly popular among youngsters and the working class, Sanders is considered as the leader of the powerful progressive movement in the country, which now has a sizable control over the ruling Democratic party.
"Biden and Democrats can win this election if they address the needs of the working class," Sanders said.
The statement gains significance given that the Biden campaign is experiencing a crisis after the president's poor performance during the June 27 debate against his Republican rival Trump.
"They have to take on the greed of corporate America and massive income and wealth inequality, raise the minimum wage to a living wage, expand Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing, lower childhood poverty by making the child tax credit permanent, make the very rich pay their fair share into Social Security so we can expand benefits and extend its solvency, cancel medical debt, and build the low-income and affordable housing we desperately need," Sanders said.
Notably, the progressive had entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Biden campaign during the 2020 presidential election. After the MoU was signed, the progressive went all out in support of Biden and played a key role in his victory in the November 2020 election.
On the CBS's "Face the Nation", Sanders said, "Biden is old.... But what we have got to focus on is policy -- whose policies have, and will, benefit the vast majority of the people in this country."
"Who has the guts to take on corporate America? Who is talking about expanding Medicare so we cover dental, hearing and vision? Who is talking about raising the cap on the taxes that people pay into Social Security, so we can raise Social Security benefits and extend the life of social security for 75 years?
"Who is talking about a permanent child tax credit to cut childhood poverty in America by 50 per cent? Those are the issues (Biden has) talked about.... This is not a beauty contest or a Grammy award contest. Who stands with the vast majority of this country, the elderly, children, working class, the poor? That candidate is, obviously, Joe Biden," Sanders said.
