Bernie Sanders Gets Jimmy Carter's Support For Criticizing Growing Impact Of Corporate Money On US Politics

Former President Jimmy Carter and Bernie Sanders met Monday night for the first time for a discussion focusing on human rights at the Carter Center in Georgia and it was the same night when Carter revealed he had voted for Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primary elections.

The two-day event at Carter Center’s annual Human Rights Defenders Forum had attendees from various fields, which included activists, peacemakers, and community leaders from across 31 countries. The audience applauded Sanders for his comments on the impact corporate money on U.S.' politics.

It was then that Carter quipped: "Can y'all see why I voted for him?"

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Carter's comments drew laughter from the audience and it was reportedly the first time, he revealed his 2016 Democratic primary choice in public.

“I think during the last election in America, Bernie Sanders represented the best of all the candidates what this conference is about,” Carter told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview about an hour before their joint appearance at the end of a forum dinner. “When you lose your opportunity to have some reasonable chance of a decent income, you lose a lot of other things as well. One of the key things people feel is that they’ve lost a voice in their own government.”

In August 2016, Carter said he would vote for Clinton in the general election. He had then said: "It's been an exciting and unprecedented kind of campaign this year, and unfortunately, the way it's turned out, both choices in the major parties are quite unpopular." However, he also added: "But I don't have any doubt that one of the candidates is better qualified than the other," the New York Daily News reported.

During the discussion, Sanders talked about the high voter participation in this weekend's French presidential election. Sanders said that the same level of participation is necessary in the U.S. as well.

Sanders also took a dig at President Donald Trump saying: “People often ask me, ‘What do you think about what the president said yesterday.’” He added: “It’s hard to answer because his view will be different tomorrow, and very often, factually what he says is just not correct.”

Sanders went on to speak at length about how integration of different classes and communities is important for a party to win. He emphasized on making the Democratic Party a grassroots party.

“I don’t think the real change that we need will take place in the U.S. Senate or in Washington,” Sanders said. “It’s going to take place at the grassroots level from one end of this country to the other. In many ways, Donald Trump did not win the election. The Democratic Party lost the election. That means we have got to revitalize the Democratic Party and make it a grassroots party and bring together black workers, and white workers, and Latino workers, and Asian-American and Native American workers.”