AP Photo Sanders dismisses Trump's 'absurd' attacks

Sen. Bernie Sanders declined on Sunday to directly punch back at Donald Trump for saying the independent senator from Vermont would “dramatically raise taxes on Americans.”

"If I had to respond to every absurd thing Donald Trump said, I'd spend my whole life doing it," Sanders said on ABC's "This Week," in response to attacks by Trump for being a "communist" who wants to dramatically raise Americans' taxes.


Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, acknowledged, however, that his proposal to make public college tuition free would involve raising taxes on some of the wealthiest Americans like Trump, a billionaire real estate developer and entertainer who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

"If we're going to make public colleges and universities tuition free, as I believe we have to do, yeah we are going to have a tax on Wall Street speculation, yes we are going to ask Trump and his billionaire friends to pay more in taxes," Sanders said.

"What rate?" ABC host George Stephanopoulos interjected.

"We'll come up with that rate, but it'll be a damn lot higher than it is right now," Sanders said. "When you see the rich getting much, much richer and their effective tax rates, as Warren Buffet often reminds us, is lower than the effective tax rates of truck drivers and nurses, yeah, the wealthy have got to pay more."

Sanders was also asked what he thought of actor Larry David's impersonation of him on "Saturday Night Live."

"I think we'll use Larry on our next rally. That's what I'd do," Sanders said.

