Sanders Dodges When Asked What the Top Rate on the Wealthy Should Be

STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know, the president is actively quoting Democrats. He appeared in Indiana with Senator Joe Donnelly. This week Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, all of them are up in 2018. If a Democrat votes, Democratic Senator votes for this bill, will you support a primary challenge?

SANDERS: Look, the issue is, I would hope that Democrats from one end of this country to the other would be fighting this proposal. This is not politics, George, this is just really, bad policy. And I’m not clear why anybody would support a proposal, which gives massive amounts of tax breaks to the people who don’t need it at a time of incredible income and wealth inequality in America.

If anything, right now, what we must be demanding is that the wealthiest people in this country start finally paying their fair share of the taxes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What would that be?

SANDERS: I’m sorry?

STEPHANOPOULOS: What would that be? What should the top rate be?

SANDERS: Well, that’s something we have to work on. But when you have the top one-tenth of 1 percent now owning almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, it is very clear to me that the wealthiest people in this country have got to start paying their fair share of taxes.

You’ve got major corporations making billions of dollars a year in profit, stashing their profits in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda and at the end of the year not paying one nickel in federal taxes.