Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on Monday that he won’t be attending Israeli Prime Minister’s March address to Congress.
“I am not thinking about not going. I am not going,” he said.
Sanders made the remarks at the Brookings Institution during a conversation with the think tank’s senior fellow and Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne.
The senator said that the invitation to address Congress extended by Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) infringes on the ability of the executive branch to formulate foreign policy, and that it was “wrong” that President Obama was not consulted.
Boehner and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken about the address as a means of raising awareness about the alleged imminent danger of Iran’s nuclear program—an impending threat that Netanyahu has spoken of since 1992.
The House leader announced the invitation the day after President Obama’s January State of the Union Address—a speech in which he made the case that ongoing diplomatic negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program are in the best interest of the United States.
Sanders used part of the speech to talk about his thoughts on running for President in 2016—a discourse that touched upon his own foreign policy outlook. He noted his support for the ongoing US airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
He also reiterated that he would not be running for President if he was unable to build a grassroots movement that could support his campaign.
“When you take on the billionaire class, it ain’t easy,” he said. Sanders intoned that getting two million Americans to each pledge $100 to a bid–one fifth of what the Koch brothers plan on spending in 2016, he said–would probably make him lean toward running.
He certainly seemed to relish the possibility of campaigning. While praising President Obama as “better than his contemporaries,” Sanders said the President squandered an opportunity to embrace Franklin Delano Roosevelt-style populism.
“He should have looked into the camera and said ‘the economic royalists hate me and I welcome their hatred,’” Sanders said.
“These people have destroyed millions of lives,” he added. “I will take them on.”
Sanders said his campaign would focus on income inequality, climate change, and political power concentrated by the economic elites.
In response to a question from Dionne about what role he sees the financial sector playing under his administration, he said he would try to break up the banks like Teddy Roosevelt, “a good Republican,” as Sanders described him.
He said banking should return to the “conservative” industry it once was, decrying how Wall Street has become “an island unto itself” that is centered around “complicated, dangerous, speculative financial tools.”
The senator also described President Obama’s free community college proposal as “a good start,” but said it should be extended to graduate school.
“We have got to go further,” Sanders stated, saying that government-funded graduate tuition is needed for the US to compete with European countries. He lamented how he spoke to a constituent of his now indebted to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the “crime” of wanting to provide healthcare to low-income Vermonters.
“Public education doesn’t have to end in high school,” he said.
Sanders also reiterated that he would not play a spoiler if he ran, repeating a point that he has made earlier—that he would run on the Democratic Party ticket.
He also said that he would not engage in mudslinging and would seek to run an issues based campaign against the presumed frontrunner for the Democratic nomination—former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“It is not my style to trash people,” he said. “It’s not my style to run negative ads.”
He did note, however, with all his points on the state of the economy and the financial situation of the average American, he might have a different type of negativity problem. His wife, he said, jokes about passing out “tranquilizers and anti-suicide kits” after his speeches.
“I’m trying to be more cheerful,” he said. Sanders did remark that the strides that have been made in fighting racial discrimination and the gains in the battle for women’s rights and the rights of disabled Americans has given him hope.
