Sen. Bernie Sanders told MSNBC on Thursday that his strategy for defeating Donald Trump in 2020 will be to speak to his working-class base and "expose him as the fraud that he is."



"Trump essentially lied to the American people," Sanders said. "Who were hurting, and for too many years the Democratic leadership ignored that pain and ignored the midwest and the flyover states."





"So you expand the base, talking to working people and young people, and we expose Trump for the fraud that he is... when he campaigned on being a friend of the working people," he explained. "You do that, I think I can win. I can defeat Trump and every poll that I have seen suggests we are ahead of Trump, and I think that is the correct way to go forward."





STEPHANIE RUHLE, MSNBC: Can your ambitious, progressive plans pull in all Democrats? Nancy Pelosi has said the number one priority for the Democratic Party should be to defeat Donald Trump. Do you believe your plans can pull the party together? Since Joe Biden officially entered the race we've seen you drop in the polls.



SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Absolutely. Look, what I believe is the way you beat Trump, who is the most dangerous president I expect in modern history if not the history of our country, is bringing more people into the political process. That means speaking to working people who out of frustration in some cases voted for Trump. It means getting young people involved in the political process and voting. What we saw in 2018 was a good step forward, and as more young people voted than in previous years but we have to do a lot better than that.



So you expand the base, talking to working people and young people, and we expose Trump for the fraud that he is when he said that he -- when he campaigned on being a friend of the working people. You do that, I think I can win. I can defeat Trump and every poll that I have seen suggests we are ahead of Trump, and I think that is the correct way to go forward.



STEPHANIE RUHLE: Can you swipe his base? President trump believes -- and many do -- that his base is bulletproof. But you and he had a similar message in the last election that it was economic populism. He hasn't delivered for those voters. Can you take them from him?



BERNIE SANDERS: Absolutely. Look, Trump essentially lied to the American people who were hurting, and for too many years the Democratic leadership ignored that pain and ignored the midwest and the flyover states. So when Trump tells the American people during his campaign that he is going to provide health care to everybody -- remember that? Everybody. Well, then he fights to throw 32 million people off of the health insurance they have.



He said, hey, I'm a different type of Republican. I will not cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. Look at his budget. Massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, billions in cuts to Social Security. So I think that we can expose him for the fraud that he is and provide an alternative progressive agenda, which really does speak to the needs of working families.