Sanders hits Slotkin's suggestion to ditch 'oligarchy' talk: Americans aren't 'dumb'

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday pushed back on a suggestion from Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) to change how Democrats are talking about President Trump and his administration, saying "the American people are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are."

Sanders was pressed in a TV interview about a recent critique from Slotkin, a fellow member of the Senate Democratic caucus, who advised Democrats to drop the term "oligarchy" when criticizing Trump and his allies.

Slotkin, who won her seat in a battleground state carried by Trump last year, told Politico that the term doesn't resonate with voters outside of coastal areas and suggested the party should instead say it opposes "kings."

Sanders, who has crisscrossed primarily western U.S. cities with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) this year for the pair's "Fighting Oligarchy" tour, drawing tens of thousands of people, hit back Sunday in an interview on NBC News's "Meet the Press."

"Well, jeez. We had 36,000 people out in Los Angeles, 34,000 people in Colorado. We had 30,000 people in Folsom, Calif., which is kind of a rural area. I think the American people are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are," Sanders said.

"I think they understand very well, when the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, when big money interests are able to control both political parties, they are living in an oligarchy," he added.

A spokesperson for Slotkin did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who served in the House for six years, has revealed some of her frustration with progressives in the past, suggesting at a town hall meeting last month that lawmakers like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez "have a lot of words" while asking "what have they actually done to change the situation with Donald Trump?"

The progressive lawmakers' tour, which has stoked buzz about Ocasio-Cortez's political ambitions, is billed as aiming to produce "real discussions across America on how we move forward to take on the Oligarchs and corporate interests who have so much power and influence in this country."

The duo has held other stops this year in states including Montana, Idaho, Utah and Arizona. Their tour includes two upcoming events in Pennsylvania on Friday and Saturday.

Sanders said Sunday that "the two-party system is failing the working class of this country," pointing to health care, wages, "a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires to control both political parties" and more.

"Those are some of the issues that need to be discussed. And we are going out around the country right now asking people, working people, 'Run for office. You want to run as a Democrat? Great. You want to run as an Independent? That's great. But you have to get involved in the political process,' " he said.

Slotkin, who delivered the Democratic response to Trump's joint address to Congress earlier this year, told Politico that Democrats nationally should push to "retake the flag" from Trump and Republicans while shedding what she described as a "weak and woke" public perception.

"After this 100 days of the Trump Administration, we owe the nation a plan: reclaiming our patriotism, a real economic plan for the Middle Class, and a fight for our democracy that recognizes the stakes," she wrote on social media following a speech in Lansing on Thursday to begin laying out her strategy for Democrats.