Sen. Bernie Sanders told his Sunday night Democratic audience in Flint, Mich., that being called a communist by Donald Trump was “one of the nicest things that he said about me.”

Sanders gave his answer to CNN debate host Anderson Cooper, when Cooper cited Trump’s criticism.

In October, for example, Trump described Sanders as a “socialist-slash-communist.” Trump also called Sanders a communist in early February at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “I’d love to run against him,” Trump said, “To run against a communist in this country … I’d love that.”

But Sanders embraced the criticism Sunday night, saying the description “was one of the nicest things that he said about me.”

From 1917 to 1989, communist rulers — including Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong — killed almost 100 million people, according to the 1997 account, “The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression.”

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