A former Democratic presidential hopeful and current U.S. Senator is visiting Iowa City next weekend to ‘fight the oligarchy.’
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is setting off on a tour titled “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here,” stopping in Iowa City on Feb. 22.
Sanders’ town hall will “focus on the takeover of the national government by billionaires and large corporations and the country’s move toward authoritarianism,” a release from his office said.
He will also discuss “how Americans can fight back against President Trump and Elon Musk,” who the release said are moving the United States “toward authoritarianism, oligarchy and kleptocracy.”
Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during an “End Corporate Greed” rally, Friday, Oct., 25, 2019, at the Pedestrian Mall in Iowa City, Iowa.
Sanders’ Iowa City appearance will be held at the Englert Theatre downtown. Doors are scheduled to open at 10:30 a.m., with Sanders expected to take the stage at 11:30. He is scheduled to speak at an Omaha, Nebraska, union hall the night prior.
The tour is beginning in districts won by former president Joe Biden in 2020 and a Republican House member in 2024, the release said. Incumbent Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks, in November, survived a second straight challenge from Christina Bohannan in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. Biden, in 2020, defeated Trump in Johnson County by the largest margin, percentage-wise, of any candidate since at least 1920.
“This country belongs to all of us, not just the few,” Sanders said in the release. “We must fight back.”
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Vermont Senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks with his family on stage during his Caucus Day rally on Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, in Des Moines.
Sanders twice finished as runner-up in Iowa
Sanders ran two presidential caucus campaigns in Iowa in 2016 and 2020, finishing second along thin margins each time.
In 2016, Johnson County settled on Sanders, though the state was won by Clinton, the Democratic Party’s eventual presidential nominee.
Sanders fell less than a tenth of a percentage point short of former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg in the 2020 caucus. The Associated Press, in a rare decision, decided not to declare a winner after uncertainty over the full accuracy of the results. That year, Johnson County narrowly chose Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts over Sanders.
Sanders fell short of garnering enough widespread support in both election cycles and eventually suspended his campaigns shortly after the Iowa caucus.
In the years since, the 83-year-old Sanders has won two additional terms in the U.S. Senate, most recently in 2024.
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Bernie Sanders has long been critical of Donald Trump, recently set sights on Elon Musk
Sanders has long been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, and in recent weeks has targeted Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly Twitter, and according to Forbes, the richest man in the world.
Musk has ascended politically in the weeks since Trump took office as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, commonly referred to as DOGE. Earlier this week, he fielded questions alongside Trump in the Oval Office and among other things, defended the accountability of the unofficial DOGE operation.
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The highest-profile action connected to Musk was large-scale cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID, which distributes billions in humanitarian and foreign aid abroad.
Sanders was critical of the move, saying the agency “feeds the poorest children on Earth.”
“Musk’s actions are not only immoral and unconstitutional, they are counterproductive to our standing in the world,” Sanders wrote on X.
On Wednesday, Sanders accused Musk of “planning to pay for his tax cut with your health care.”
Sanders has described Musk as “the most important appointee of the Trump administration” and said, “That’s Oligarchy.” Last month, on Meet the Press, Sanders even drew comparisons between the oligarchy of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the oligarchical leadership of billionaires who spend large sums of money on candidates “in both parties.”
Sanders, in a video posted to X on Feb. 8, said Musk and Trump will continue to go after the things that impact everyday Americans, including Medicaid, Pell grants, affordable housing, and more.
“Together, we are going to stand up, fight back, get organized and tell Trump that this country is a democracy,” Sanders said. “The government is supposed to work for all of us, not just the billionaire class.”
Ryan Hansen covers local government and crime for the Press-Citizen. He can be reached at rhansen@press-citizen.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ryanhansen01.
This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Bernie Sanders Iowa City visit: ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour coming
