Bernie Sanders Discusses the Demilitarization of Police and Donald Trump's Rise on 'The Breakfast Club'

"You're right, at first it seemed like a joke," Sanders says of Trump's mercurial rise within the GOP field.

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Complex Original

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Bernie Sanders called in to The Breakfast Club early Friday morning, embarking on an impassioned 16-minute discussion about the continuation of social justice and the mercurial rise of Donald Trump. Sanders, who still remains in a neck-and-neck race with sole party rivalHillary Clinton, faces a difficult battle ahead of Saturday's Democratic primary in South Carolina. However, if the Vermont senator's discussion with Charlamagne and the rest of the Breakfast Club team is any indication, that battle has only emboldened his outspoken support of addressing many of the nation's most pressing issues.

"We have more people in jail today than any other country on earth," Sanders told listeners on Friday, adding that the incarcerated consists of "largely African American, largely Latino" citizens. "The criminal justice system is broken." When pressed about Hillary Clinton's controversial stance regarding the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994, Sanders admitted his own previous faults regarding similarly misguided legal moves. However, says Sanders, he is now focused on explaining the shortcomings of such an approach and in returning a balanced order to the justice system.

When asked about the continued prevalence of police brutality by Angela Yee, Sanders—a consistent proponent of widespread police reform—once again outlined why exactly this issue deserves as much attention as possible. "We've got to demilitarize these police departments," Sanders argued. "We have to make police departments [represent] the diversity of the communities they serve."

As for the aforementioned Donald Trump, Sanders agreed with DJ Envy (and many others) that his presidential campaign initially seemed like some sort of a "joke" but has quickly become the exact opposite. "What [Trump] is doing is tapping [into] the worst instincts in people," Sanders said. "We have to stand up to him and fight back." Peep the full interview above.

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