Bernie Sanders Suggests Abraham Lincoln Was Actually A Democratic Socialist

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) attempted to tie President Abraham Lincoln — America’s first Republican president — to Democratic socialism based on one line from his famed Gettysburg Address.

Sanders joined the hosts of ABC’s midday talk show “The View,” where the cohosts pressed him on everything from the ongoing government shutdown to his recent campaign stops with New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, a self-described Democratic Socialist.

Cohost Sara Haines asked about the shutdown, and Sanders brushed off the idea of a standalone vote on Affordable Care Act subsidies — one of the main sticking points for Democrats as the shutdown drags on — despite a promise from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to hold such a vote.

Sanders claimed that he wanted to end the shutdown “tomorrow,” but that he couldn’t vote to reopen the government as long as Republicans refused to undo the parts of the Big Beautiful Bill that he didn’t like.

“50,000 people will die unnecessarily every single year,” Sanders insisted, waving his hands to punctuate his point. “50,000 of our fellow Americans.”

He then claimed that Trump and Republicans were taking away health insurance from the poor in order to “pay for” a tax break for the wealthy.

WATCH:

Sunny Hostin praises Sanders for campaigning far-left extremist Zohran Mamdani and tees him up to call on Democrats to move further to the left:

“Senator, you’ve been campaigning with the front-runner in New York City’s mayoral race: democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. He’s… pic.twitter.com/YvTduTORrg

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 20, 2025

Cohost Sunny Hostin pivoted to ask about Mamdani, saying, “Senator, you’ve been campaigning with the front-runner in New York City’s mayoral race: Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani. He’s leading by double digits. He probably will be the next mayor of New York. Now, a recent Gallup poll showed that over half of Democratic voters prefer socialist aligned figures like yourself, like AOC, like Mamdani, to more establishment, centrist politicians. Is this the direction the Democratic Party needs to go?”

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“You know what? People are saying here’s a radical idea,” Sanders said. “This is what Democratic Socialism basically means: let’s have a government that works for all the people, not just the billionaire class. Let’s end a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires in both political parties to determine who wins elections.”

Sanders concluded by suggesting that Lincoln was actually talking about the same goal when he gave the Gettysburg Address: “Let’s try to create the kind of democracy that Lincoln talked about way back when, when he said ‘a government of the people, by the people, for the people.'”