ABC’s George Stephanopoulos presented a fantasy to presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders – that Republicans would be running TV attack ads against him.

“I can hear the Republican attack ad right now,” Mr. Stephanopolous said Sunday morning on “This Week.” “He wants America to look more like Scandinavia.”

Of course, Mr. Sanders, a Vermont independent who announced Thursday he’s running for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, would only be the subject of such negative advertising if he were to topple the party’s heavy favorite, Hillary Clinton. Nevertheless, Mr. Sanders accepted the premise.

“That’s right,” he said. “That’s right. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong when you have more income and wealth equality. What’s wrong when they have a stronger middle class in many ways than we do, a higher minimum wage than we do and they’re stronger on the environment than we are.”

Mr. Sanders, who was interviewed after a segment on boxing, stressed his campaign themes of wresting power from billionaires to try to aid the middle and lower economic classes. He suggested former Labor Secretary Robert Reich would make a good Treasury secretary, though he said it is “premature” to propose who his defense secretary might be if elected.