Payne: Bernie Sanders ‘sounds like a naive college student’ with claims about Democratic socialism

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Charles Payne on Sanders' claim that Americans would be 'delighted' to pay more taxes.

Fox Business Network host Charles Payne questioned Thursday the new claim by Sen. Bernie Sanders that Americans would be "delighted to pay more in taxes" in order to fund his Democratic socialist policies. 

Fox Business Network host Charles Payne questioned Thursday the new claim by Sen. Bernie Sanders that Americans would be "delighted to pay more in taxes" in order to fund Democratic socialist policies.

On Wednesday, Sanders attempted to sway voters into the ideology of Democratic socialism and argued in favor of what he called an "Economic Bill of Rights," where every American would have a right to free health care and education. He also insisted that President Trump is a "corporate socialist" for providing billions in subsidies and tax breaks for corporations.

During an appearance on CNN, the Democratic candidate was asked how he will respond to Trump's attacks on the campaign trail, specifically when the president invokes Venezuela as an example of failed socialism, and how he would pay for his campaign promises.

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"I suspect that a lot of people in the country would be delighted to pay more in taxes if they had comprehensive health care as a human right," said Sanders, I-Vt. "I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border. You go to the doctor any time you want. You don't take out your wallet. You have heart surgery, you have a heart transplant, you come out of the hospital, it costs you nothing. Your kids in many countries around the world can go to the public colleges and universities tuition-free, wages in many cases are higher."

He continued, "So there is a trade-off, but at the end of the day, I think that most people will believe they going to be better off when their kids have educational opportunities without out-of-pocket expenses, when they have healthcare as a human right, when they have affordable housing, when they have decent retirement security, I think most Americans will understand that is a good deal."

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Responding on "America's Newsroom," Payne said he's never heard a presidential candidate embrace higher taxes in such a way.

"Nobody wants to pay higher taxes. I thought Bernie really fell flat yesterday," said Payne, referring to Sanders' address, arguing Sanders' rivals are "stealing" pieces of his platform and the senator is losing ground in the polls to Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

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Payne said Sanders "sounds like a naive college student" with his no-apologies defense of Democratic socialism.

"It looks good on paper, it looks fair. He spent his honeymoon in U.S.S.R. Maybe he believes it so much that he's blinded to history and current-day events. Even though he won't say Venezuela, he doesn't ever say anything negative about Venezuela either," he said.

Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.