US Senator Bernie Sanders launches 2020 presidential bid
Washington: US Senator Bernie Sanders has launched his bid to be president in 2020 with an attack on corporate greed and a promise to unleash a “political revolution”.
Speaking on Saturday in Brooklyn, New York, he called Donald Trump the “most dangerous president” in recent US history, the BBC reported.
Sanders, a 77-year-old independent senator for Vermont, lost the 2016 Democrat race to Hillary Clinton.
He faces a much more crowded field this time but brings name recognition and a passionate support base.
More than 10 others are also running to be Democrat candidate, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and the Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Julian Castro.
His speech promised a presidency that would “bring people together”. He outlined numerous policies and attacked greed and the “billionaire class”.
As president, he said he would enact a “federal jobs guarantee” to ensure all Americans have work, more than double the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15, pass “comprehensive” immigration reform, including allowing hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants to stay in the US, make universities and colleges tuition-free, and reform healthcare to give universal coverage.
He promised to fight for “economic justice, social justice, racial justice and environmental justice”.
Sanders was born in Brooklyn, and the backdrop for his speech gave him an opportunity to contrast himself with the president.
He grew up as the son of a Jewish immigrant who worked as a paint seller, while Trump, who also was born in New York, was the son of a wealthy real estate developer.
“I did not have a father who gave me millions of dollars to build luxury skyscrapers, casinos and country clubs,” he said.
“But I had something more valuable: I had the role model of a father who had unbelievable courage in journeying across an ocean, with no money in his pocket, to start a new and better life.”