Sanders’s campaign has spent more than half a million dollars chartering jets this year
Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I., Vt.) campaign spent $78,371 chartering private jets between July and September, according to federal campaign finance disclosures it submitted Wednesday. Just a few hours later, Sanders lamented that the United States is “increasingly becoming an oligarchic form of society,” during a CNN town hall.
It continues the campaign’s pattern of spending lavishly on private air travel. During the six months prior, Friends of Bernie Sanders spent more than $450,000 chartering jets.
Sanders has been unapologetic about his use of private jets. Sanders scoffed when Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked him about a Washington Free Beacon report highlighting his spending on private jets during an interview in May.
“You think I’m going to be sitting, waiting in line at United, waiting while 30,000 people are waiting?” Sanders said. “It’s the only way to get around. No apologies for that. That’s what campaign travel is about. We have done it in the past, and we will do it in the future.”
It is unclear whether Sanders feels the same about his campaign staffers. The same day his campaign paid the firm N-Jet $33,371 in August, for example, it also spent $30,629 on commercial airline tickets.
Overall, during the three-month period ending in September, it spent more than $50,000 on commercial airfare from American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and JetBlue Airways.
Friends of Bernie Sanders, it appears, has primarily chartered private jets to transport the senator to stops along his Fighting Oligarchy Tour, a series of political rallies featuring Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.). The tour began in February and has included 35 stops across the country, including, most recently, a rally in New York City with Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
The revelation also comes as lawmakers remain in a stalemate over the ongoing Democratic-led shutdown. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez blamed Republicans for the situation during the town hall on Wednesday, accusing them of wanting to rescind tax credits for health insurance and gut Medicaid.
“We’re going to fight for federal employees,” Sanders said when asked about the impact the shutdown he supports has had on government workers. “We’re going to do everything we can and move as quickly as we can to make sure you get your paychecks.”
The most recent analysis of wages across the entire federal workforce, meanwhile, found that the median government salary is $79,386. That’s roughly the same amount Sanders’s campaign spent on private jet travel between July and September alone.
Friends of Bernie Sanders did not respond to a request for comment.
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