Global peace campaigner Helen Caldicott claims that Sanders presents the greatest direct political challenge to the established interests in the United States.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders presents the greatest direct political challenge to the established interests in the United States, global peace campaigner Helen Caldicott said Sputnik.

"Bernie Sanders poses the strongest challenge to the US establishment," Caldicott, founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the co-winner of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize said. "That is why the mainstream media in the United States will not cover him until they absolutely have to."

Caldicott expressed her agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments in a nationally broadcast telecast on Thursday that the ruling political establishment in the United States was determined to prevent any candidate embracing serious reforms to in the presidency in this year’s contest.

"Putin is absolutely right: Hillary Clinton is married to the establishment so nothing will change under her," she stated.

Clinton and Sanders face each other in the New York State primary election on Tuesday. Though Sanders is trailing Clinton in votes and pledged delegates, he has vowed to stay in the race until the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in the US state of Pennsylvania in July.

Sanders has continuously criticized Clinton for her ties to big financial institutions and other corporations that have donated to her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, upwards of $150 million in speaking fees as well as in other donations, according to media reports.

Trump offered less certain, but still conceivable possibility for reforming bellicose US national security and foreign policies, Caldicott suggested.

"I am not sure about Trump, he makes some interesting statements sometimes. However the Republican establishment will do everything they can to thwart him — and they are the establishment!" she noted.

Trump has been increasingly complaining of the unfair political system in which a candidate can win delegates from a state without being voter for in a primary election, or can lose delegates even if he wins.

The Republican National Committee is determined to prevent Trump through winning the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the party’s presidential nomination on the first ballot at the party’s national convention in Cleveland, Ohio in July, Caldicott observed.

Caldicott is the author of many books, including "The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military Industrial Complex." The Smithsonian Institution has named Caldicott one of the most influential women of the 20th century.