Sanders talked to the Guardian while on a tour to speak out unsparingly against the bill: ‘the most anti-working class legislation in the modern history of’ the US

As Donald Trump celebrated the marriage of Wall Street executive-turned-treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin in the Washington swamp he repeatedly pledged to drain, Bernie Sanders stepped onstage in Pittsburgh.

‘They’re sentencing me to death’: Medicaid recipients on the Republican healthcare plan Read more

In a city the president last month said he was elected to represent rather than Paris, home of the global climate accord from which Trump has withdrawn, the Vermont senator denounced a “moral outrage that this country will never live down”.

In Washington, Senate Republican leaders pushed for a vote to dramatically reshape the US healthcare system, ignoring pleas from within their own party to allow more time for debate. In the Rust Belt, Sanders spent the weekend rallying opposition to their plan.

In Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, Sanders was unsparing in his attack on the Republican healthcare bill, which would likely leaves millions of people without insurance cover.

“The so-called healthcare bill passed in the House last month is the most anti-working class legislation in the modern history of our country,” he said in Pittsburgh, at the first of three rallies organized with the progressive group MoveOn.org, aiming to mobilize opposition ahead of an expected Senate vote this week.

The Senate plan – drafted in secret and released last Thursday, with minor revisions announced on Monday – would repeal major pieces of the Affordable Care Act (Aca) and exact deep cuts to Medicaid.

“The horrible and unspeakable truth,” Sanders said, speaking to a crowd of roughly 1,600, “is that if this legislation was to pass, and if millions of people, many of whom are terribly ill today, would to lose their healthcare that they have, there is no question but that many many thousands of our fellow Americans will die unnecessarily.”

“Unacceptable!” a man called out.

Others shouted: “I will die!”

In Columbus, Ohio, Sanders told the crowd he been criticized for portraying the healthcare bill as a matter of life and death. But it was “common sense”, he said, to say that if you take away healthcare coverage, “people will die by the thousands”.

“I say this with pain, with anxiety,” he added. “Thousands.”

For many attendees, this was personal. Diana Zoelle, a retired political science professor, feared cuts to Medicaid would leave her 89-year-old mother unable to afford nursing home care. Her mother had spent nearly all of her retirement savings, she said, and had been told she was eligible for Medicaid, which covers the longer-term care needs of nearly two-thirds of nursing home residents.

“But then Trump says he’s taking $880bn out of Medicaid,” Zoelle said. “I guess he assumes that I will take my mother home with me from the nursing home and that I will pay for everything she needs and then I won’t have anything for my old age.”

One of the women Zoelle came with shook her head. “If the healthcare bill goes through,” she said, “that’s when the real revolt is going to start because it’s going to affect them and they will act.”

There’s not a whole lot of familiarity with the bill. That’s what McConnell wants – he wants to move it quickly Bernie Sanders

Republicans are facing an increasingly difficult challenge to find the votes to pass their healthcare overhaul this week. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to release an analysis of the bill as early as Monday; Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will spend the week cajoling reticent members of his party.

“There’s not a whole lot of familiarity with the bill,” Sanders told the Guardian in an interview conducted in Gino’s Pizza at Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia. “That’s what McConnell wants – he wants to move it quickly without a lot of discussion because it’s such a bad bill.”

McConnell has said he wants a vote by the end of the week, before lawmakers leave for a week-long holiday. Over the weekend, some Republican senators cast doubt on that timeline.

Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, who has announced his opposition to the bill from the right, said on NBC’s Meet the Press: “There’s no way we should be voting.” Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate who has “serious concerns”, said on ABC’s This Week: “It’s hard for me to see the bill passing this week.”

Sanders said a delay would be a victory for Democrats and opponents of the effort to scrap the ACA that has only become more unpopular with scrutiny.

“If we can beat back on votes this week,” he said, “it gives us the opportunity to better communicate to the American people how disastrous this legislation is.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bernie Sanders arrives at Capitol Hill on 14 June. Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

At least five Republicans have announced their opposition – three more than party leaders can afford to lose. Democrats do not have the votes to stop the bill but remain staunchly opposed.

“If [Ohio] Senator [Rob] Portman votes no, the likelihood is this bill would go down,” Sanders said at the rally in Columbus. In Charleston, West Virginia, he said the same of Senator Shelley Moore Capito. Neither has yet made a decision, unlike Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania – who is likely to vote yes.

At the rallies, Ben Wikler, MoveOn’s Washington director, warned that Republican opposition could melt away as McConnell negotiates. He urged attendees to continue pressuring senators in their states.

“This is not a drill,” he said at that rally. “This bill is on a knife’s edge. This is a code red. We are here to show the entire country the energy, the passion it will take to stop this bill.”

‘One might think the president would have more to worry about’

Trump, who celebrated with a Rose Garden ceremony when the House healthcare bill passed last month, has failed to make a winning case for the legislation. In an interview with Fox & Friends that aired on Sunday, he accused Barack Obama of copying his characterization of the House bill when the former president described the “fundamental meanness” of the Senate plan.

Trump wants 'heart' as Republicans seek to deliver Senate healthcare bill Read more

“He actually used my term: ‘mean’. That was my term,” Trump said. “Because I want to see – and I speak from the heart – that’s what I want to see, I want to see a bill with heart.”

Earlier on Sunday, while administration officials defended the healthcare bill on the morning talk shows, Trump chose to revisit the 2016 Democratic primary, tweeting that Hillary Clinton “colluded” with the Democratic National Committee to beat “Crazy Bernie Sanders”.

“One might think that the president of the United States would have more to worry about than an election that ended for me a year ago,” Sanders told the Guardian. “I can think of one or two issues that might be of greater importance than worrying about a Hillary Clinton v Bernie Sanders primary. But what do I know?”

Sanders’ supporters from that primary remain, however, and many of them are young. Nearly 5,000 turned out for the three weekend rallies, which were organized with only a few days notice.

One might think that the president would have more to worry about than an election that ended for me a year ago Sanders on Trump

At an Outback Steakhouse in St Clairsville, Ohio, on Saturday night, servers fought over who would get to seat the senator. In the course of dinner, several diners interrupted to ask for a photo. One squeezed next to Sanders in the booth with her daughter. “I’m in my gym clothes!” she exclaimed, embarrassed.

Another waitress, giddy with excitement, told Sanders: “I love you so much … Can I give you a hug?” Sanders acquiesced to every request – and occasionally even pre-empted them.

At the Charleston airport, a flight attendant rushed up to greet him. “Do you want a picture?” Sanders asked. She did. “Look at that,” he said dryly. “I can read minds.”

As a healthcare vote looms in the Senate this week, Sanders and his supporters are looking forward to the next step of the fight – moving for a universal single-payer system. Sanders is expected to introduce “Medicare for all” legislation soon and he expects to have several co-sponsors. He had none when he introduced a version in 2011.

Sanders is realistic about the bill’s chances.

“You’re not going to pass that in a Republican-controlled Congress when Trump is president,” he said. “The goal is to develop the momentum to at one point as soon as possible pass something like Medicare for all.”

At the moment, Sanders said his priority is to defeat the Republican repeal effort.

“If it passes the Senate, people should know that the fight is not over,” Sanders said.

Unless the House accepts the Senate’s version of the bill, the legislation will be sent to a conference committee where members of both chambers will work to iron out the differences. This process would give liberal organizers and opponents of the bill another chance to pressure Republicans to abandon the effort.

“The struggle continues,” Sanders said. “Our job is to educate, organize and to make sure that Republicans understand the American people are very strongly opposed to this legislation.”

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