"If he throws in with McConnell and the billionaires, Democrats don't support it," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said of President Donald Trump's tax plan. | AP Photo Sherrod Brown: Trump at 'fork in the road' on working with Democrats

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown said on Sunday that President Donald Trump is at a "fork in the road" on working with Democrats on a bipartisan bill for tax reform.

"If he throws in with McConnell and the billionaires, Democrats don't support it," Brown said on CNN's "State of the Union."


"If he chooses to fight for the middle class and help those companies that keep production in the United States, not the bill that McConnell has, if he does that, it's a bipartisan bill. That's what I have been saying all along.”

Brown offered a distinction between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Trump, saying that the president needs to decide whether he's "going to go with his campaign promises and his more recent comments, too, about focusing on the middle class," or choose McConnell's tax reform bill.

"That's the fork in the road. And, so far, the jury's out," said Brown, who's hoping for a plan that would encourage American employers to pay decent wages.

Brown also compared Trump's White House to a retreat for Goldman Sachs executives.

Trump met with senators this past week, and he suggested that a bipartisan working group for tax reform should be created.

"The people closest to the president whispering in his ear all want to do tax cuts for — want to do trickle-down economics, big tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country, and hope it trickles down," Brown said.