Presidential hopeful Sanders won warm ‘Late Show’ welcome

“If you look at the polls”, he said, “we do nearly as well … as Hillary Clinton … and that will only get better in the future”.

During the interview, Sanders touched on several of his signature issues, including income inequality, universal health care, campaign financing and education. It may be too soon to say with certainty, but I think that Colbert is the new top dog in late night. Sanders, who’s presently a robust rival to Hillary Rodham Clinton in Iowa & New Hampshire, stated it is time Americans demand in that “government start working for all of us, not just the few”.

The very first presidential candidate to bravely step into Colbert’s show as it debuted was Jeb Bush. When Colbert called him “a Ralph Nader figure” (i.e., unelectable) and “the Democratic Donald Trump”, Sanders got serious: “I think that what Trump is doing is appealing to the baser instincts among us: xenophobia, and frankly, racism – describing an entire group of people, in this case Mexicans, as rapists or criminals”. Sanders then dove right into his campaign message: He’s drawing tens of thousands of people to his events because people have “moral outrage” over the status of the country, from the lack of wealth distribution to the high childhood poverty rate.

Colbert also asked Sanders about his thoughts on GOP front-runner Donald Trump and the comparisons that are being drawn between them.

“What I am talking about is a vision that goes beyond telling us that we have to hate a group of people”, he said.

OK, so he didn’t quite answer the question there, but Sanders has said in the past that he would support a tax hike for wealthy individuals and corporations.

He said he doesn’t support the agenda of corporate America. “And if we don’t, it will still be a good story at the theater camp I will be running in Idaho”. “I think that’s disgraceful, and not something we should be doing in 2015″. On Friday, Team Sanders announced the over 150 artists, actors and other cultural leaders who are feeling the Bern, and the list features all four members of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jello Biafra, Killer Mike, Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow, MC5’s Wayne Kramer, Phish’s Mike Gordon and Jon Fishman, Jeff Tweedy, Serj Tankian, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Lil B and many more.

[How Bernie Sanders is plotting his path to the Democratic nomination].