'Kleptocracy in Action': Bernie Sanders Hammers Apple for Swaying Trump With 'Gold Statue'
"Want a tax break or special favor from the government? No problem," Sen. Bernie Sanders quipped.
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday tore into Apple CEO Tim Cook for scoring a special tax break for his company while presenting U.S. President Donald Trump with a 24-karat gold statue.
As reported by The Washington Post earlier, Cook presented Trump with the gold statue during an event at the White House in which the president announced that Apple would be exempt from the hefty 100% tariffs that he announced this week on imported semiconductors.
In a post on X, Sanders (I-Vt.) linked Trump's reception of the Apple statue to his decision to accept a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family that he will take with him after he leaves office.
"Want a tax break or special favor from the government? No problem," Sanders wrote. "If, unlike Qatar, you can't afford to give Trump a $400 million plane, just walk into the White House with a modest gold statue like Apple CEO Tim Cook. That works, too. Kleptocracy in action."
Sanders' denunciation of Trump's pay-to-play governance comes as he is planning to travel to West Virginia and North Carolina this weekend as the latest stop in his "Fighting Oligarchy" tour in which he'll hammer the recently passed Republican budget package that axed $1 trillion in funding from Medicaid over the span of a decade.
This argument could prove particularly effective in West Virginia, where KFF estimates that 513,000 residents, or roughly 29% of the population, are enrolled in either Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. What's more, KFF estimates that nearly half of all births in West Virginia are financed by Medicaid.
"I believe from the bottom of my heart, that whether you are in a red state, whether you're in a blue state or a purple state, the American people do not want to see massive tax breaks for billionaires and cuts to Medicaid, education, and nutrition," Sanders said in a Facebook video announcing his trip to the state.
Sanders is scheduled to speak in the city of Wheeling on Friday night before heading to stops in the cities of Lenore and Charleston on Saturday. On Sunday, he's headed to North Carolina, for events in Greensboro and Asheville.
