Bernie Sanders jokes rather pointedly as Donald Trump's black helicopter passes overhead at the fair:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) mocked GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday for offering rides in his helicopter outside of the Iowa State Fair.
“Oh look, what can you do? It’s Donald Trump,” he quipped during the event in Des Moines that afternoon upon seeing the aircraft fly overhead.
“I apologize – we left the helicopter at home,” joked Sanders, a 2016 Democratic White House hopeful. “I forgot to bring it.”
Trump generated spectacle during his Iowa State Fair visit Saturday by letting children fly with him in his private aircraft. The black helicopter, covered with Trump’s name on the sides, presented a rare sight on the campaign trail.
Sanders’ remarks on wealth and privilege Saturday painted a stark contrast with the excess of Trump’s campaign stunt.
“This country belongs to all of us, not just a handful of billionaires,” he told listeners. “We need millions of people to stand up to the billionaire class and say, ‘You cannot have it all.’ ”
“In America today, what we are seeing is the disappearance of the great middle class,” Sanders added. “People are working two, three jobs just to put food on the table. Meanwhile, almost all of the new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent.”
Sanders also had a few choice words to say about Republican family values versus the family values of average people:
“Their values are that a woman should not have a right to control their own bodies, and I disagree,” Sanders said. “Their values are that our gay brothers and sisters should not be able to get married, and I disagree.”
“The United States has got to end the international embarrassment of being the only nation not to guarantee paid maternity leave,” he added. “Now that’s a family value.”
He then went on to praise Iowans for supporting President Obama in 2008:
“I want to thank the people of Iowa for their courage in voting for President Obama in 2008,” he said of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary caucus there.
“What you showed is that a state that is mostly white can vote for someone based on the character of their ideas and not the color of their skin,” Sanders added.
He also promised to throw his full weight against discrimination in the justice system and
to end police violence against African-Americans:
"That has got to end," Sanders said during a major Iowa Democratic gathering Friday after listing names of African-Americans whose deaths this year involved police, the Des Moines Register reported.
"No one will fight harder than I will to end racism in America and to reform our broken criminal justice system," Sanders added of addressing the nation's incarceration rates disproportionally affecting minorities.
Sounds like he's listening and eager to get on with the job.