Bernie Sanders Gives Backhanded Compliment to Trump When Asked About Promoting Stephen Miller

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Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, paid an offhand compliment to President Donald Trump when asked about Stephen Miller’s promotion to White House chief of staff.

After a crushing defeat in the midterm elections on Tuesday, Trump has already begun shaking up his administration, replacing Susie Wiles with his deputy, Miller, known as the architect of the president’s hardline immigration policies.

Riding the blue tsunami that will give Democrats control of the House and Senate in January, Sanders spoke with NBC News’ Kristen Welker on Sunday. Meet the press on promoting his progressive platform of a $20 an hour minimum wage and free health care for all.

When Welker turned to Miller’s new — and highly controversial — role and asked if he was “the right person for the job,” Sanders mostly wanted to focus on the work Trump will do in the final two years of his presidency. But he had some thoughts about Miller.

“I’ve said it before, Kristen, Trump… Personally, I think he’s mentally unbalanced, erratic, but he’s not stupid — and he’s a good politician. And I think when Trump looks at the world and he sees millions of people working for poverty wages, he might not be unsympathetic to the idea of ​​raising the minimum wage to a living wage,” Sanders said. Sanders also noted that he wasn’t “worried” about Miller.

Trump’s mental and physical health have come under increasing scrutiny during the 80-year-old’s second term.

He spent the entire last month holding near-daily rallies in an unsuccessful attempt to mobilize support for Republican candidates. He often rambled in his speeches and went off on bizarre tangents, such as when he repeatedly exclaimed on the butt of Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, who later lost to Democrat Sherrod Brown.

Sanders, who himself is 85, said Trump “would love, I think, to take credit for doing what every other major country is doing: guaranteeing health care for everyone. So I’m not worried about Miller. Do I think we can work with Trump? Maybe. I’m not guaranteeing it by any means, but it’s certainly worth it.”

After the Republican Party bombed in the midterms, Trump told Fox News he could work with Democrats on “a lot of things. I mean, we can work with them on immigration.”

But he also made it clear that he wasn’t afraid to use his veto on bills he didn’t like.

“They have control, but they really don’t have control because they can send out 50-plus different great bills that they’re all excited about, and I send them back with a nice stamp — a veto,” Trump said.

Thirty-nine percent of midterm voters said the economy was the top issue facing the country in the AP Voter Poll conducted by SSRS, followed by 33 percent who spoke about the state of democracy and 14 percent who spoke about immigration. Only 8 percent said the main problem was health.

Trump’s war in Iran, which caused a spike in gas prices, is seen as a major factor in the Republican Party’s election losses.

Despite being the face of an eight-month-old unpopular conflict and asking his supporters to vote as if he were on the ballot, Trump has placed blame on the Republican candidates he fought so hard to get elected.

“I wasn’t on the ballot, and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” he wrote about Truth Social on election night.