Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is courting President Donald Trump’s supporters in America’s Rust Belt, where he told a crowd in Wisconsin Friday that Trump’s promise to help working-class Americans was a “monstrous lie.”

“The biggest lie of all was when he said that he would stand with the working class of our country, that he was on their side and that he would take on powerful special interests to protect working families,” Sanders said in a report in the Hill. “What a monstrous lie that was.”

Sanders’appearance in Madison was part of a four-day trip across Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania — all states that Trump won in 2016.

“[Sanders] has hewn closely to the progressive proposals that have defined much of his political career – Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage and a nationwide ban on so-called “right to work” laws – while taking a more cautious line on court packing, immigration and getting rid of the Senate filibuster,” the Hill reported.

Sanders’ team said his “core message – that decades of lopsided trade deals and special interests in Washington have exacted a toll on the country’s working class – has a particular appeal to many of the voters who put Trump in the White House, especially those in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.”

“They realize now that they’ve been hoodwinked and who’s more to trust than someone who’s been talking about this their entire career,” Chuck Rocha, a Sanders senior adviser, said in the Hill report.

“Sanders’s campaign manager Faiz Shakir outlined the strategy in a memo last week, arguing that carrying those three states while losing in other battlegrounds, like Florida and Ohio, would still be enough for Sanders to win the White House,” the Hill reported.

“Democrats could still lose all the traditional battleground states Florida and Ohio, the expanding sunbelt battleground states Texas and Arizona, and the newly competitive southern battleground states of North Carolina and Georgia – and still win the White House in 2020 with Bernie Sanders securing wins in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania,” Shakir wrote in the memo.

The Hill noted that right now Sanders’ most formidable opponent in the crowded Democratic field is former Vice President Joe Biden, who has consistently placed first in Democrat presidential candidate polling.

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