Bernie Sanders: John Bolton Wrong On Iran Just Like Iraq, "But I'll Give Him Credit For Chutzpah"

Sen. Bernie Sanders joined CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday morning to talk about Trump national security advisor John Bolton, who Tapper interviewed earlier the same hour, and news of the day including a WH staffer's comments about Sen. John McCain, WH chief of staff John Kelly's interview Friday on NPR, and his 2020 chances, including a new book from his 2016 campaign manager urging him to run.





JAKE TAPPER, CNN: I want to get your reaction to my interview with President Trump's new national security adviser, Ambassador John Bolton.



He said President Trump is already undergoing extensive preparations on North Korea. What was your response to the interview?







SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Well, I got to say something.



Needless to say, I disagree with John on a whole lot, but I will give him credit for chutzpah.



This is a man who was a key adviser to President Bush, George W. Bush, in urging him to get involved and to invade Iraq because, supposedly, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.



As I think most Americans now know, that effort in Iraq was the worst foreign policy disaster in the modern history of this country. We lost 4,400 American soldiers, brave soldiers, 31,000 wounded, half-a-million Iraqis dead.



And then Bolton talks about, appropriately so, the increased influence that Iran now has in Iraq. Yes, that's true. And that's precisely because of the war in Iraq.



So, I think you have some people, unfortunately, in Washington, Bolton being one of them, who believe that war and militarism is the answer to everything. We have spent over $2 trillion in the wars in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and yet, today, our infrastructure here in the United States is crumbling.



We have millions of people can't afford to go to college or are leaving college deeply in debt. Maybe, just maybe, we might want to be investing in the American people, rather than inflated military budgets and more and more wars.





JAKE TAPPER, CNN: I want to start with that new poll number. The midterms are now fewer than six months away. The economy is stronger. We are at virtually full employment. Why would anyone want to vote for change right now?



SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Well, I think what you have is a president who promised the American people to provide health care to everybody, and then proceeded to support legislation to throw 32 million people off of health insurance.



And most Americans think that health care should be a right of all people. We're moving in exactly the wrong direction.



You have a president, Jake, who said that his tax reform bill would not help the rich. Yet 83 percent of the benefits are going to the top 1 percent, and millions of middle-class families over a 10-year period will be paying more in taxes.



You have a president who campaigned, appropriately enough, on the outrageous ripoffs of the pharmaceutical industry, and he said he was going to take them on. And just the other day, he caved in, of course, and did not go forward in demanding that we negotiate -- Medicare negotiate prices with the drug companies or that we allow our pharmacists and distributors to re-import low-cost medicine from abroad.



So, I think what the American people perceive is, you have a president who says one thing and does another thing. And the fact is that we have -- while the economy is doing well, you have tens of millions of people who continue to work for wages that are far, far too low.



We need to raise the minimum wage to at least 15 bucks an hour. The president talked about that during the campaign, but he has forgotten that since he is -- has been elected president.



So, I think, in many ways, you have a president who said something during the campaign and is moving in a very, very different direction after he took office.

Sanders also took on claims that the Trump economy is doing "great":