DAVENPORT, Iowa — Rep. Rashida Tlaib said socialist Bernie Sanders made her feel normal for being frustrated with the country's political climate.
"He makes me feel — and many of you know what I mean by this — he makes me feel less insane," the Michigan Democrat said in Davenport, Iowa, on Saturday, referring to gripes, for example, with the country's healthcare system.
She added, "We're not insane folks. We're actually real. We're humanists."
Tlaib, a member of the quartet of first-term, female House Democrats known as "the Squad," joined New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar in endorsing the Vermont senator, 78, for president. Only Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley defected to support her home state senator, Elizabeth Warren, to become the party's 2020 nominee.
On Saturday, Tlaib, 43, slammed President Trump and his leadership for lacking "empathy," while touting Sanders' ability to tap into many people's "pain of economic oppression."
For Tlaib, Sanders' influence on the primary, including on policy issues such as "Medicare for all," already felt like success less than a month out from Iowa's opening caucuses on Feb. 3.
“I feel like we’ve already won just because he’s in the race,” she said. “I have never heard of people saying, ‘Well, I'm not going to take corporate PAC money.’ Now everybody is saying it!”
Tlaib is accompanying Sanders on his three-day swing of the first-in-the-nation state. The pair will appear at a "Green New Deal" rally on Sunday in Iowa City co-hosted with the Sunrise Movement. The youth-led coalition of environmental activists last week announced they were endorsing Sanders in the Democratic contest for the right to challenge Trump in the fall.
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