Bernie Sanders Hits Back At Speaker Johnson Calling Upcoming Protest The ‘Hate America’ Rally
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) hit back at House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) sarcastic renaming of the upcoming “No Kings” rally to the “hate America” rally with a sharp video rebuke.
The peaceful demonstration is planned for October 18 and is expected to draw huge crowds to cities across the country, just as the event did earlier this summer.
Johnson has repeatedly referred to the gathering as the “hate America” rally, claiming at the Capitol this week, “This hate America rally that they have coming up for October 18th? The antifa crowd, the pro-Hamas crowd, and the Marxists, they’re all gonna gather on the Mall…It is an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes… all this has gotta come to an end.”
Sanders posted a video response to X. on Friday, saying, “No, Speaker Johnson, the No Kings Rally on October 18th is not a ‘hate America’ rally. In fact, it’s quite the contrary: it’s a love America rally. It’s a rally of millions of people all over this country who believe in our Constitution, who believe in American freedom, and are not going to let you and Donald Trump turn this country into an authoritarian society.”
Sanders continued, “It’s a group of people who are disgusted that you and your friends want to double health care premiums in this country, and take health care away from 15 million Americans. The right to protest is what America is about. You are not going to stop us.”
The protest organizers wrote in a statement, “Speaker Johnson is running out of excuses for keeping the government shut down. Instead of reopening the government, preserving affordable healthcare, or lowering costs for working families, he’s attacking millions of Americans who are peacefully coming together to say that America belongs to its people, not to kings.”
Republicans have blamed the government shutdown, now in its second week, on the Democrats wanting to give health care to undocumented migrants. Democrats have been holding out for a restoration of benefits that are part of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid.
