Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) denied saying that the Republican health care bill would kill people during a Wednesday interview on ABC's "The View."
Co-host Jedediah Bila asked Sanders about his and other Democrats' past rhetoric about the health care proposals from Republican lawmakers. Hillary Clinton at one point called the GOP the "death party" if it went through with its effort to repeal Obamacare.
"If you're going to sit down with people on both sides of the aisle, some Democrats have branded Republicans the party of death, for example, calling the the tax cuts in the Senate health care bill blood money," Bila said. "You have said Republicans are potentially killing Americans. Is that rhetoric irresponsible? And does it provide an impasse to compromise, if you're going to sit down with those very people you said want to kill people?"
Sanders dismissed Bila's claim that he ever said Republicans are killing people. Sanders insisted that he was referencing a Harvard study that predicted that 28,000 Americans would die every year if Obamacare is repealed.
"You're using rhetoric that I didn't use," Sanders said. "This is what I said, and it's not me. This is a dozen or more studies that show that if you throw 22 million people off the insurance they have ... These are people who have cancer. These are people who have heart disease, diabetes, other life-threatening illnesses. What study after study shows is that thousands of those people will die. That's what Harvard says."
Sanders tweeted back in June that "thousands of people will die" if the Republican bill became law.
Let us be clear and this is not trying to be overly dramatic: Thousands of people will die if the Republican health care bill becomes law.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 23, 2017
Sanders also compared the predicted death toll from the GOP legislation to the September 11 terror attacks at a health care rally.
"But what experts at the Harvard School of Public Health estimate is that if 23 million Americans were to be thrown off the insurance they currently have, which is what the House bill would do, up to 28,000 Americans every single year could die," Sanders said. "That is nine times more than the tragic losses we suffered on 9/11, every single year."
He asserted Tuesday that President Donald Trump wants "millions of people to suffer" by letting Obamacare fail.
"It is beyond comprehension that you have a president who basically wants millions of people to suffer so he thinks that he can win some political points," Sanders said.
Sanders has previously been asked if his rhetoric is irresponsible after House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R., La.) and four others were shot last month at a GOP baseball practice in Alexandria, Va. The shooter, James T. Hodgkinson, was an avid supporter of Sanders and possessed a deep hatred of Republicans and Trump.