Larry Wilmore was barely one minute into a bit about anti-Donald Trump skywriting at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday night when his big guest for the night strode onto the stage to dispute the suggestion that he was behind the airborne messaging.
“Wait a minute,” Bernie Sanders said as the crowd began to chant his name. “Here’s the story. I don’t have to spend money to make Donald Trump look dumb. He does it all by himself!”
Less than four months after their somewhat awkward “soul food sit-down,” Wilmore and Sanders seemed like old friends. The host noted that in his estimation Sanders has won each of the “top secret” Democratic debates, held at times when the fewest number of viewers will watch. “Who do you think is more against you, the Republican Party or the Democratic Party?” Wilmore asked.
“Well, we are taking on the Establishment,” Sanders said graciously. “And I think it is fair to say, I’m not the candidate of the Establishment.” Moving on to foreign policy, the Vermont senator highlighted the fact that he voted against the Iraq War while his primary opponent Hillary Clinton voted for it. As he has done before, Sanders argued against “perpetual warfare in the Middle East.”
The rest of their interview included many of the talking points surrounding the “billionaire class” that Sanders has expressed on numerous other platforms, but he did express unequivocal support for President Barack Obama’s new executive action on guns. Despite his past record on the issue, Sanders insisted that his constituents would have no problem with the idea of expanding background checks.
At Wilmore’s urging, Sanders also said he believes the #BlackLivesMatter movement is an “important issue,” adding that white people are “as appalled” as anyone else about police killings of minorities and said he would hold cops accountable for their actions if he were president.
Finally, as a prominent Jewish-American, Sanders was called on by Wilmore called to explain Trump’s comment about Clinton getting “schlonged” by Obama once and for all. “How does someone get schlonged?”
“I think you’ll have to ask Donald Trump for an explanation on that,” Sanders replied. “I have yet to recover from Trump’s shock that women go to the bathroom.”
With that in mind, Wilmore asked Sanders if he would promise to “schlong” Trump in the general election should they end up going head-to-head. His “Keep it 100” answer? “We will beat him badly.”