Donald Trump, billionaire Republican presidential frontrunner, has changed his mind about wages: Americans aren’t earning enough. He’s also not keen on Wall Street. The shift has Trump on a collision course with Democrat Bernie Sanders – while oddly agreeing with many of his points.

“Wages in are [sic] country are too low, good jobs are too few, and people have lost faith in our leaders. We need smart and strong leadership now!” Trump tweeted on Monday.



Wages in are country are too low, good jobs are too few, and people have lost faith in our leaders.We need smart and strong leadership now! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2015

The opinion appeared to reverse what the Republican frontrunner said in November during the fourth Republican debate. Asked if he was sympathetic to the protesters demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage, Trump said: “I can’t be.”

“[T]axes too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave [the minimum wage] the way it is,” Trump said at the time. “People have to go out, they have to work really hard and have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can’t do it.”

Sanders, a senator from Vermont and self-described socialist, used those comments to criticize Trump while appearing on CBS Face the Nation on Sunday.

“This is a guy who does not want to raise minimum wage,” he said of Trump. “In fact, he has said that wages in America are too high.”

Trump lashed back at Sanders, tweeting: “[Bernie Sanders]–who blew his campaign when he gave Hillary a pass on her e-mail crime, said that I feel wages in America are too high. Lie!”

.@BernieSanders-who blew his campaign when he gave Hillary a pass on her e-mail crime, said that I feel wages in America are too high. Lie! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 27, 2015

In the days after the fourth Republican debate, Trump attempted to clarify that he was not speaking of wages in general, just about the US federal minimum wage which has remained at $7.25 since July 2009.

Pundits and prominent Democrats like President Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Sanders have all noted that one of the main reasons that Trump’s campaign has gained traction with so many Americans is because of the struggling middle class.

“Many of Trump’s supporters are working-class people and they’re angry. They’re angry because they’re working longer hours for lower wages. They’re angry because their jobs have left this country and gone to China or other low-wage countries. They’re angry because they can’t afford to send their kids to college so they can’t retire with dignity,” Sanders said on Sunday.

In his Monday morning tweets, Trump touched on these topics – noting that wages had barely grown in the past few years.

“The middle-class has worked so hard, are not getting the kind of jobs that they have long dreamed of – and no effective raise in years. BAD,” Trump tweeted. “Many of the great jobs that the people of our country want are long gone, shipped to other countries. We now are part time, sad! I WILL FIX!”

According to the US Department of Labor, US wages had grown by just 2.3% over the past 12 months. The wage growth would have to reach 3.5% to 4% for lowest-paid Americans to feel that impact of the recovering economy. The Department of Labor has referred to the US wages as the “unfinished business of this recovery” and Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve, said the Fed expects wages to grow in 2016.

The frustration and anger felt by Trump’s supporters makes them into potential Sanders supporters, according to the Vermont senator. Trump disagrees.

“Strange, but I see wacko Bernie Sanders allies coming over to me because I’m lowering taxes, while he will double & triple them, a disaster!” he tweeted on Monday.

An analysis of Trump’s tax proposal revealed that the most generous tax cuts would be received by the rich, since the poor Americans that Trump spoke of already do not pay income taxes.

Trump’s recent comments on wages come as he has also stepped up his disparagement of Wall Street – characterizing hedge funds as “getting away with murder”. His comments have drawn puzzlement from bankers familiar with the financing of the presidential candidate’s business empire.

One described his amusement at Trump’s comments, telling the Financial Times: “He’s almost one of us, at least in the business sense ... He is totally comfortable around Wall Street and bankers.”

Trump’s effort to characterize himself as without obligation to the financial sector despite his long record of loans and debt restructuring during episodic turbulence in his business career, including the bankruptcy of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts in 2004, is likely to raise eyebrows.

In that instance, Trump specifically thanked Morgan Stanley for helping to arrange $500m in debt refinancing. In other brushes with bankruptcy, Trump convinced Chase Manhattan to restructure $900m in Taj Mahal casino debt in 1991; sold Citigroup 49% of New York’s Plaza Hotel the following year; and sued Deutsche Bank in 2008 over a $640m construction loan for Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago.

Trump’s campaign sought to qualify the candidate’s criticism of Wall Street, saying he was focused on the large political donations and tax loopholes often exploited by hedge funds and private equity managers.

“Mr Trump is self-funding his campaign and is not beholden to these big money donors of Wall Street or any other group,” a spokeswoman said. “The only special interest Mr Trump is beholden to is the American people.”

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross told the Financial Times that Trump’s extensive dealings with Wall Street has not yielded any “novel points of view” on the subject on the relationship of politics and money, except that he’d indicated he might appoint hedge-funder and activist investor Carl Icahn as Treasury secretary. “I would guess that Donald is not condemning the whole breed,” Ross added.

