Bernie Sanders chose to spend Martin Luther King Jr. Day blasting President Trump and calling him a “racist.”

The senator’s remarks came while he was speaking on the steps of the South Carolina State Capitol during an NAACP rally.

“Today we talk about justice and today we talk about racism, and I must tell you it gives me no pleasure to tell you that we now have a president of the United States who is a racist,” Sanders said. “We have a president of the United States who has done something that no other president in modern history has done. What a president is supposed to do is to bring us together. And we have a president intentionally, purposely … trying to divide us up by the color of our skin, by our gender, by the country we came from, by our religion.”

Sanders (I-Vt.) was joined by local leaders and lawmakers during the event — including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker — but the others refused to launch personal attacks on the president and instead kept the focus on MLK Jr. and civil rights.

“I’ve come to learn in this country that we have a common pain, but we seem to have lost a sense of common purpose,” Booker said. “We need each other. We must awaken a more courageous empathy.”

The Democratic lawmaker added, “This is not a time for us to rest in our country. The work is not done. The dream still demands.”

While neither has announced their candidacy, both Sanders and Booker have been pegged as potential hopefuls for the 2020 Democratic primary race. Booker told reporters on Monday that he was “not that far from making a decision” about a possible campaign.

“It’s about them showing their presence,” said Q’ladrin Qourters, a student with the NAACP Aiken Collegiate Chapter who spoke to CBS News. “This will be my first time seeing their faces, so if it is their initiative of showing that they’re going to be for the youth and showing what they’re going to do then, hey, I’m all for it.”