Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro criticized his fellow opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) during a Sunday interview on CNN's State of the Union.
Castro was asked by CNN anchor Jake Tapper to respond to Sanders, who called Castro and Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D., Mass.) support for reparations unclear and vague.
"What I said was that I've long believed that this country should address slavery, the original sin of slavery, including by looking at reparations. If I'm president, then I'm going to appoint a commission other task force to determine the best way to do that," Castro said.
Castro went on to blast Sanders for ruling out reparations in the form of a cash payment when what he describes as a majority of Sanders's agenda consists of "writing a big check." Sanders has led the way in supporting mammoth programs such as the Green New Deal, "Medicare for all," and tuition-free college.
Castro said:
There's a tremendous amount of disagreement on how we would do that, but let me say something about Senator Sanders's response there. He was also asked this question in 2016. What he said on The View the other day, I think, he didn't think the best way to address this was for the United States to write a check. To my mind that may or may not be the best way to address it. However, it's interesting to me that when it comes to 'Medicare for all,' health care, you know the response has we need to write a big check, that when it comes to tuition-free or debt-free college, the answer has been we need to write a big check. So if the issue is compensation think the argue about writing a big check ought to be the argument you make if you're making the argument that a big check needs to be written for a whole bunch of other stuff.