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CHICAGO — A day after many of his supporters protested at a rally for Donald J. Trump here, Bernie Sanders defended the demonstrators and pointedly attacked the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, for closing schools and firing teachers.

The Vermont senator, in the midst of a tour across the Midwest ahead of Tuesday’s elections, spoke to reporters Saturday and called on Mr. Trump to denounce the increasingly aggressive behavior of his supporters at many of the Republican front-runner’s events.

Mr. Sanders also took aim at his rival, Hillary Clinton.

“Hillary Clinton proudly lists Mayor Rahm Emanuel as one of her leading mayoral endorsers,” Mr. Sanders said. “Well let me be as clear as I can be: based on his disastrous record as mayor of the city of Chicago, I do not want Mayor Emanuel’s endorsement if I win the Democratic nomination.”

Mr. Sanders went on to say that Mr. Emanuel was not the type of leader that he would want to be connected with because the mayor has closed schools and fired teachers while keeping close ties with Wall Street banks. Mr. Sanders also criticized the city for paying banks that “lured the school system into a risky investment in an exotic debt-financing scheme.”

“The city of Chicago should sue these banks for fraud and put public pressure on these wealthy bankers to protect Chicago’s most precious asset – its children,” Mr. Sanders said. “The reality is that there wouldn’t be a budget shortfall if Chicago had refused to pay Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America over $500 million for risky financial schemes that were marketed as a way to finance the public school system.”

The senator stopped short of calling for Mr. Emanuel to resign. But he said that if he lived in Chicago, he would join the efforts to have him step down. Many Sanders supporters in Chicago have been demanding the mayor resign for months.

Adam Collins, a spokesman for Mr. Emanuel, said in a statement Saturday night that Mr. Sanders’s comments were “the kind of typical campaign rhetoric you get this time of year.”

“The Mayor is proud to have actually implemented a program to provide free college tuition in Chicago, instead of just talking about the idea,” Mr. Collins said. “On Wednesday Bernie Sanders will leave town and take his empty promises with him, and Mayor Emanuel will be right here doing the hard work to move Chicago forward and create opportunities for our residents.”

Mr. Sanders also defended his supporters who were protesting Mr. Trump’s rally on Friday, which was eventually canceled. The senator rejected claims that the protesters were inciting violence, as some Trump supporters have suggested.

“What our supporters are doing is responding to a candidate who has in fact, in many ways, encouraged violence,” Mr. Sanders said. “When he talks about, you know, ‘I wish we were in the old days when you could punch somebody in the head,’ what do you think that says to his supporters?”

Mr. Sanders said, “Donald Trump has got to be loud and clear and tell his supporters that violence at rallies is not what America is about and to end it.”

Soon after speaking to reporters, Mr. Sanders sat down with the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson at his civil rights organization, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. The two men talked about voter suppression, institutional racism and Mr. Sanders’s plan to invest in poor communities. Mr. Jackson said Mrs. Clinton would l meet with him on Monday.