Charlie Rangel: Trump has ‘pulled the sheet off the Republican Party’
By Alex Bregman
Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York spoke to Yahoo Finance Anchor Alexis Christoforous on “Yahoo News Now” about Sen. Bernie Sanders saying for the first time that he will vote for Hillary Clinton in November and the parallels between the Brexit vote and the U.S. general election.
Rangel, a Clinton supporter, told Christoforous that Sanders’ support was a very important step for party unity. “As his makeup guy would say, it’s very, very, very, very important,” Rangel said. “But the problem we’re having in our party is like a pimple on an elephant’s behind compared to what the Republicans have. We have a different way as Democrats to talk about our unity. We just don’t sit down and say, ‘Can we do it?’ We fight like hell for those things that we believe in. And while I had no idea that Bernie Sanders was so popular when he was in the House and Senate, I really believe he’s made my candidate even a better candidate, because there’s no question in my mind that her qualifications are outstanding.”
The congressman isn’t worried about Sanders’ supporters backing Trump. “There is no problem in my mind of any of Bernie Sanders’ people supporting Trump. None. Because they’re rational-thinking people,” he said.
On whether he sees any parallels between those who voted for Britain to leave the European Union and those who support Donald Trump for president, Rangel said, “You bet your life.” He continued, “It strengthens the fact that being disgruntled and frustrated doesn’t mean you build a wall. It means that you try to tear down a wall. That’s what international trade agreements are for. That’s what the European Union was all about.”
Rangel then got into who Trump is appealing to in the U.S. “He’s tapped into those people who don’t like immigrants, who don’t like Muslims, who don’t like blacks, who hate Latinos, who don’t like Asians,” he said. “You bet your life he’s tapped into it.”
Rangel continued, “If you want to force me to say something good about Trump, I would say, yes, I am so glad he’s pulled the sheet off the Republican Party, because now that he’s completely destroyed the party of Lincoln, I want a decent two-party system when this election’s over.”
