Bernie Sanders has a lot of young people supporting his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Donald Trump said Monday he expects many of them will shift their alliances over to him as the process continues.
"Frankly, the Democrats have treated them very, very badly," Trump told CNN's Chris Cuomo on the
"New Day" program. "The Democrats have really treated Bernie Sanders and all of his followers unbelievably badly. It's a rigged system, just like the Republicans have a rigged system."
But it's not only Sanders' supporters that Trump expects to attract: He wants to bring protesters like the ones who have been creating havoc in California "in my tent."
"I'm going to create jobs," he told Cuomo. "I'm going to bring jobs back to this country. Our country does not have jobs. We have a phony unemployment rate of 5
percent, and it has to do with the fact that they use that statistic in order to make the politicians look good.
"The rate we really have is close to 20 percent, maybe over 20 percent or you wouldn't have the kind of crowds they have."
And he believes his supporters like his stance on the border and other issues, but the jobs and economy are what have them really concerned.
"People look for a job and they have to quit after four, five, months," said Trump. "They stop looking for a job and they're considered statistically employed, and it's ridiculous. I think a lot of these people are going to join my campaign."
And after Cuomo asked Trump "how" four times about how he'll keep jobs in the United States, the front-runner explained that if he's elected, there will be "consequences" of tariffs or taxes to companies that take their jobs to places like Mexico.
Trump also attacked Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton on the show, saying that he'd catch heat if he had made a "very harsh statement" like she did over the weekend about how she knows how to deal with men who go off the reservation.
"It's basically like, I can handle men," Trump said. "Don't worry about me. I can handle men. If somebody said that, if I made that statement about women, they'd be front page headlines."
And, Trump said, "I won't bring up the fact the Indians have gone wild on that statement. You know that? The Indians said that that statement is a disastrous statement, and they want a retraction. I'm not going to get into that."
Cuomo reminded him that he "just did" get into the controversy by bringing it up, and, Trump replied that he thinks "it's a very nasty statement to men, and if I made that estimate, it would be a big, big story."
But Trump said, he is "way, way up with women, far above anybody else in the exit polls of the recent elections . . . Women want strength. They want security. They want a strong military. They want to know our country is being corrected.
"They want to know about women's issues, women's health issues. I'm going to do a better job for women than Hillary can do."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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