Bernie Sanders Slams Donald Trump as a 'Total Phony' Who's Only an 'Extreme Right-Winger' to Get Votes

President Donald Trump's conservative agenda is not grounded in any real beliefs held by the president but is based solely on Trump's pandering for votes, according to independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Tuesday.

Sanders blasted Trump as a political leader with no true beliefs and who previously held far more left-wing views well before he ever entered politics.

"Look he has no political belief. He is a total phony and a political opportunist," Sanders said of the president to CNN while promoting his new book Where We Go From Here: Two Years in the Resistance. The progressive movement leader also detailed how Democrats can form a message to appeal to voters in the Midwest and around the country.

Sanders noted Trump's public stances on issues like healthcare, taxes and abortion prior to his run for the presidency as examples of Trump moving "with the wind" in order to win votes from conservatives.

"I don't know if people know this. He now condemns legislation that I introduced called Medicare-for-all," Sanders said. "He earlier in his life he supported Medicare-for-all. This guy supported a tax on wealth. He was pro-choice. But he moves with the wind and right now he is in an extreme right-winger because he thinks that's how you get votes."

Sanders, who is considered one of the frontrunners for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, also said he was most disturbed by what he called Trump's attempt to divide the country along racial, religious and sexual preference lines.

"And what he is doing which disturbs me very much above and beyond tax breaks for billionaires, above and beyond trying to throw 32 million people off of health insurance all of which he is doing, he is doing what no president in modern history has done in trying to divide the American people up based on the color of our skin or the country we came from or religion or sexual orientation. That is outrageous."

Sanders said his book is about "what I and other progressives have been doing for the last two years. To bring people together, not only in opposition to Trump but to create an agenda that makes sense to farmers in Iowa and in Nebraska where we are coming together around ideas that work for all of us."

Sanders's book was released Tuesday by Thomas Dunne Books.