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FLASHBACK: Bernie Describes Wanting ‘To Puke’ Watching JFK Get Tough On Castro

(LEFT: Getty Images RIGHT: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Katie Jerkovich Entertainment Reporter
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Bernie Sanders reminisced in 1986 about watching the 1960 presidential debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon and how it made him sick to hear them talk tough about Fidel Castro’s uprising.

“But I remember, for some reason, being very excited when Fidel Castro made the revolution in Cuba. I was a kid and I remember reading that,” the Independent Vermont senator shared in a clip posted by The Reagan Battalion on Thursday. (RELATED: Rep. Meeks: Bernie Sanders Shouldn’t Be Allowed To Run In Democratic Primary)

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“And it just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against rather ugly rich people,” he added. “And I remember…I was watching the debates, remember the famous Nixon-Kennedy debates. That was the first time the presidential candidates actually debated.” (RELATED: Bernie Sanders Emerges As Early Frontrunner As Democrats Line Up To Announce For 2020 Race)

Sanders continued, “And I was becoming increasingly interested in politics. And at that time, I was very excited and impressed by the Cuban Revolution. And there was Kennedy and Nixon talking about which particular method they should use about destroying the revolution.”

“Kennedy was saying that Nixon was too soft on communism…we should deal firmly with Fidel Castro,” Sanders shared. “And Nixon was playing the role of ‘Hey, you got to be patient. You can’t do these things. You go to negotiate.'” (RELATED: Bernie Sanders Announces He’s Jumping In The 2020 Presidential Race)

The 2020 hopeful then went on to suggest that what Nixon was really “upset about” was that “secretly they were planning the Bay of Pigs invasion, right then.”

“So, he was the liberal and Kennedy was playing the conservative,” Sanders shared. “But I actually got up from the room and almost left to puke because, for the first time in my adult life, what I was seeing is the Democrats and Republicans, both of them…that clearly there wasn’t a hold lot of difference between the two.”