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west virginia
Sanders Takes Oligarchy Fight to Appalachia With Standing-Room-Only Crowd in West Virginia
"Whoever said West Virginia was a conservative state?" Sanders asked the crowd in Wheeling. "Somebody got it wrong."
Aug 09, 2025
On the latest leg of his Fighting Oligarchy Tour, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders headed to West Virginia for rallies on Friday and Saturday where he continued to speak out against the billionaire class's control over the political system and the Republican Party's cuts to healthcare, food assistance, and other social programs for millions of Americans—and prove that his message resonates with working people even in solidly red districts.
"Whoever said West Virginia was a conservative state?" Sanders (I-Vt.) asked a roaring, standing-room-only crowd at the Capitol Theater in Wheeling. "Somebody got it wrong."
As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, some in the crowd sported red bandanas around their necks—a nod to the state's long history of labor organizing and the thousands of coal mine workers who formed a multiracial coalition in 1921 and marched wearing bandanas for the right to join a union with fair pay and safety protections.
Sanders spoke to the crowd about how President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was supported by all five Republican lawmakers who represent the districts Sanders is visiting this weekend, could impact their families and neighbors.
"Fifteen million Americans, including 50,000 right here in West Virginia, are going to lose their healthcare," Sanders said of the Medicaid cuts that are projected to amount to more than $1 trillion over the next decade. "Cuts to nutrition—literally taking food out of the mouths of hungry kids."
Seven hospitals are expected to shut down in the state as a result of the law's Medicaid cuts, and 84,000 West Virginians will lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, according to estimates.
Sanders continued his West Virginia tour with a stop in the small town of Lenore on Saturday afternoon and was scheduled to address a crowd in Charleston Saturday evening before heading to North Carolina for more rallies on Sunday.
The event in Lenore was a town hall, where the senator heard from residents of the area—which Trump won with 74% of the vote in 2024. Anna Bahr, Sanders' communications director, said more than 400 people came to hear the senator speak—equivalent to about a third of Lenore's population.
Sanders invited one young attendee on stage after she asked how Trump's domestic policy law's cuts to education are likely to affect poverty rates in West Virginia, which are some of the highest in the nation.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes a federal voucher program which education advocates warn will further drain funding from public schools, and the loss of Medicaid funding for states could lead to staff cuts in K-12 schools. The law also impacts higher education, imposing new limits for federal student loans.
"Sometimes I am attacked by my opponents for being far-left, fringe, out of touch with where America is," said Sanders. "Actually, much of what I talk about is exactly where America is... You are living in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and if we had good policy and the courage to take on the billionaire class, there is no reason that every kid in this country could not get an excellent higher education, regardless of his or her income. That is not a radical idea."
Sanders' events scheduled for Sunday in North Carolina include a rally at 2:00 pm ET at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts in Greensboro and one at 6:00 pm ET at the Harrah Cherokee Center in Asheville.
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'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.
Aug 08, 2025
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.
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Sanders Heading to West Virginia and North Carolina for Latest Swing of 'Fighting Oligarchy' Tour
"Red state, blue state—the people of this country are opposed to an economy that works for the 1% and not for working-class Americans," said the senator.
Jul 31, 2025
For the first time since U.S. President Donald Trump signed his domestic policy into law, handing out tax breaks to the rich that will far outweigh those for working-class families and slashing healthcare and food assistance programs that millions depend on, Sen. Bernie Sanders will be face-to-face with voters in Republican districts next weekend for the latest leg of his Fighting Oligarchy Tour.
Sanders is headed to several towns in West Virginia Friday, August 8 and Saturday, August 9 and will make his way to Greensboro and Asheville, North Carolina on Sunday, August 10—all in deep red districts like those the Vermont independent senator has visited in states like Idaho and Texas as he talks to voters from across the political spectrum about "the takeover of the national government by billionaires and large corporations, and the country's move toward authoritarianism."
"I'll be heading to West Virginia and North Carolina to discuss the need for decent paying jobs, healthcare for all, and the end of a corrupt campaign finance system in which billionaires buy politicians," said Sanders.
So far, more than 240,000 people have attended Sanders' rallies, where he's been joined by musical guests and, at some stops, by other progressive leaders including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Greg Casar (D-Texas) and United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain.
Well-attended rallies hosted by Sanders, a longtime critic of both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who take donations from billionaires and corporate interest groups, have frequently been dismissed by the political and media establishment, but the senator has argued that the crowds of people showing up to hear his message this year demonstrate that Americans across demographic divides, throughout the country, are fed up with politicians who don't fight for the working class.
"Red state, blue state—the people of this country are opposed to an economy that works for the 1% and not for working-class Americans," Sanders said Thursday.
More than two-thirds of people who have RSVP'd to the tour have been new to Sanders' mailing list, and about a third of them have not been registered Democrats. Livestreams of Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy rallies have also been viewed more than 8 million times.
Sanders' latest stops in West Virginia and North Carolina will begin days after he and his team held an online "National Training" to organize around efforts "to defeat every member of Congress who voted for Trump's disastrous budget bill and elect progressives up and down the ballot."
"We have to organize people," said Misty Rebik, Sanders' chief of staff, on the call. "Over the past several months, we have organized thousands of people to attend rallies, canvasses, office visits, town halls in swing districts across the country. We've recruited more than 7,000 people to run for office. Over half of those are running as independents."
Americans are answering Sanders' call to help defeat oligarchy and Trump's anti-worker, anti-immigrant, and anti-democracy agenda, said Rebik, because they "do not think that billionaires should control our government and they are not sitting around. And that's why President Trump's so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill' has to be the defining issue of the 2026 campaign. And as Bernie has said, no member of Congress who has voted for this disastrous legislation should be reelected."
The five cities Sanders will visit next weekend are all represented by Republicans who voted for Trump's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act and are up for reelection in 2026.
Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards, whose Western North Carolina district includes Asheville, got thousands of calls from constituents urging him to vote against the bill, with nearly 300,000 of his constituents facing the possibility of losing healthcare and food assistance as a result of its passage.
This article has been corrected to reflect the fact that Sen. Sanders' tour in West Virginia and North Carolina is taking place August 8-10, 2025. A previous version misstated that the tour was taking place August 1-3.
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