Socialist Kshama Sawant, who was elected this year to the Seattle City Council, said Tuesday she does not count President Barack Obama as a comrade in socialism.
In an interview with HuffPost Live, Sawant said it was difficult for her to label the president as a socialist when, she said, advocates for single-payer health insurance were ignored during negotiations around the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
"Everybody who was an advocate for that kind of a system was shut out," Sawant said. "The people who he invited were insurance company and pharmaceutical company executives."
Sawant also said if Obama were a socialist, he would have met with Boeing employees during a fundraising trip to Washington instead of raising money for the Democratic Party. Boeing employees in Seattle recently rejected a contract from the airplane manufacturer.
"If an elected official was truly committed to the interests of working people as a genuine socialist would be, then, if I were him, I would prioritize meeting Boeing workers and trying to ensure that I gave them my support and solidarity," she said. "I wouldn’t be going to raise millions of dollars from wealthy backers."
View Sawant's entire response in the video above from HuffPost Live.
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