Progressives (Liberals)

how much do the Russians pay their operatives nowadays?

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says he wants to stop President Donald Trump's vision to "Make America Great Again."

"Today we say to Donald Trump - We are not going back to more bigotry, discrimination and division," Sanders told a South Carolina audience Monday at an event marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

"Instead of bringing us together as Americans, he has purposely and aggressively attempted to divide us up by the color of our skin, by our gender, by our nationality, by our religion and by our sexual orientation."

Sanders made headlines shortly before the midterms when he laid into the president as "the most racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted president in history." He repeated part of that claim Monday.

"We, today, have a president who is a racist," Sanders, 77, said.

Democrats old and young seem to have reached that conclusion. Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, said earlier this month that calling the president a bigot is a no-brainer.

"Yeah, yeah, no question," the New Yorker said during a CBS "60 Minutes" interview after being asked that question. Among the examples she cited were Trump calling Nazi sympathizers in the 2017 Unite the Right ralley in Charlottesville, Va., riots "good people."

"The president certainly didn't invent racism," Ocasio-Cortez pointed out, "but he's certainly given a voice to it and expanded it and created a platform for those things."

Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a longtime civil right activist who was beaten in the 1965 protests in Selma, Ala., told ABC "This Week" that he, too, thought Trump was a bigot following the president's alleged remarks indicating nonwhite nations were "s---holes."

"I think he is a racist," Lewis said.

After spending last year's MLK Day at his private Mar-a-Lago country club in Florida, the president this year placed a wreath before a King memorial in D.C. on Monday, where he and Vice President Mike Pence spent two minutes.

"Today, it was my great honor to visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial with Mike Pence," he tweeted.

Trump has disputed accusations that he is a bigot on several occasions.

"I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed, that I can tell you," he told reporters in January 2018.

Former Vice President Joe Biden sought to link President Trump to what he described as “forces of darkness” and hatred, in a blistering speech to a Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast sure to keep speculation alive about a possible 2020 bid.

The former VP spoke on a day when a numerous potential or declared presidential candidates were participating in MLK Day events, including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Cory Booker, D-N.J.

Just hours earlier, California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris formally announced her presidential run in an interview. And preceding Biden at the National Action Network breakfast was former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who hinted at 2020 considerations when he quipped that he wanted to get “pointers” from Biden on what it’s like to live in Washington.

But Biden, who once engaged in a war of words with Trump over who would win in a fight, continued to show no reservations about tearing into president – signaling he would run a sleeves-rolled-up, aggressive campaign should he decide to launch one.

Recalling the “hate that cut” down King in 1968, Biden said “forces of darkness” continue to nurture that undercurrent.

“They have been deliberately reawakened again … it’s not an accident,” Biden said, citing the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a counter-protester was killed and dozens were injured in a car attack.

Trump was widely criticized for his initial remarks on the rally and the violence, saying there were some “very fine people on both sides.”

Biden said: “Having a president of the United States make a moral equivalence between those who are spreading the hate and those who are opposing it … no president since the Civil War has ever, ever, ever uttered words like that.”

Without addressing his 2020 intentions, Biden spoke in broad terms as he called for people to “speak out” and said, “This is not our America.”

The address included a few stump speech-like lines, referencing his well-known affinity for Amtrak and urging an increase in the minimum wage nationally.

“What the hell are we arguing about a $15 minimum wage for, why is that even a question?” he asked.

Biden, however, would face an already-crowded Democratic field if he enters – as well as lingering questions about whether the old guard of the Democratic Party should step aside to allow a younger, more diverse class of competitors duke it out for the party mantle in 2020. His two-time running mate, former President Barack Obama, recently called for "new blood" in politics.

Trump, meanwhile, celebrated the holiday and honored King’s legacy on Monday, disregarding Biden’s criticism.

“Today we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for standing up for the self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the color of our skin or the place of our birth, we are all created equal by God. #MLKDay,” he tweeted, along with a presidential proclamation.

Trump and Vice President Pence also visited and laid a wreath at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington.

I think we can all agree that Trump is a racist.

I think we can all agree that Trump is a racist.

Biden, weighing 2020 bid, tears into Trump at MLK breakfast over Charlottesville comments

Coates didn't beat around the bush, telling Ocasio-Cortez straight up that she needed to address a lack of general knowledge surrounding many of her proposals.

Her response alluded to her upbringing, with a mother who taught her the importance of not paying too much attention to others' criticisms. Ocasio-Cortez said she knows it's a deliberate strategy to attack her, the messenger, so it discredits her message.

She added that the way she's being treated is not unlike a few of the criticisms lobbed at King in the 1960s.