Sen. Bernie Sanders lashed out at the prospect of a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton by a victorious Trump administration. President-elect Donald Trump has suggested Clinton should be the target of such a probe by a special prosecutor.
In his first interview on CNN's "The Situation Room" after Trump's election as president Tuesday, Sanders, who lost to Clinton in the Democratic primary, also said he "would have loved to have had the opportunity to run against [Trump], but that did not end up being the case."
"President [Barack] Obama will do what he feels is best," he said of whether Clinton should receive a pardon even though she's not been convicted of a crime.
"But the idea in a democracy in the United States of America that a winning candidate would try to imprison the losing candidate, that's what dictatorships are about," he said.
"That's what authoritarian countries are about. You do not imprison somebody you ran against because you have differences of opinion. That would be an outrage beyond belief."
"And I think the vast majority of the American people would find that totally, totally unacceptable to even think about those things," he said.
Sanders pushed back on calls for him to consider another run at the White House in 2020, though he's also not ruling it out.
"The people are tired of never-ending campaigns," he told CNN. "Let us focus on the reality of today. Let's focus on the issues impacting the American people. And let's not worry about who is going to be running in 2080 or something like that."
Sanders said he appreciated that Trump's election was fueled by the anger of Americans over jobs and globalization – but warned against turning that anger against the wrong targets.
"People have a right to be angry, but we have got to channel that anger against the people who caused the decline of the middle class and so many people living in poverty," he said.
"Not take it out on our neighbors, who may happen to be Muslim or Latino or women. That is demagoguery. I will do everything I can to oppose that. Deal with the real issues."
"I intend to work with President Trump on those issues where he will, in fact, work for the middle class and working families of this country," Sanders said. "I will vigorously oppose him if he appeals to racism or sexism or some of the other discriminatory measures that he brought up during his campaign."
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