Days after tweeting that President Trump’s tariff threats against Mexico were about a “fake border ‘crisis’ to scapegoat migrants,” Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said the massive influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border is a “serious problem” but not a crisis. Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning, the Democratic presidential candidate was pressed by guest host Dana Bash, who noted that border apprehensions in May were the highest monthly total in 13 years. “How is that not a crisis?” Bash asked, highlighting that border facilities are “dangerously overcrowded.”

“It is a serious problem, but it is not the kind of crisis that requires demonization of desperate people who in some cases have walked a thousand miles with their children,” Sanders stated. “It is an issue we have to deal with. But the issue of climate change, the issue of tens of millions of Americans not having health insurance, the fact that half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, those are more serious crises.”