Second Bernie Sanders Staffer Praises Gulags

Martin Weissgerber, a field organizer for Bernie Sanders' 2020 campaign, in an undercover video recorded by Project Veritas. Screenshot/Project Veritas

A second field organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) 2020 campaign has expressed support for gulags.

Martin Weissgerber, a field organizer for the campaign, made the comments to an undercover Project Veritas reporter.

Weissgerber said he’s ready for the “[expletive] revolution” and that he hopes to “guillotine the rich” and “send Republicans to reeducation camps.”

“Do we just dissolve the Senate, House of Representatives, the Judicial Branch and have somebody like Bernie Sanders and a cabinet of people make all decisions for the climate?” he said. “I mean, I’m serious. What will help is when we send all the Republicans to the ’reeducation' camps.”

Video contains expletives. 

Weissgerber said that gulags, or a system of forced labor camps established by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, were originally founded “as reeducation camps.” He claimed that Americans went to work on the Belomorkanal, a canal that linked the White Sea and the Baltic Sea. It was the first project exclusively constructed by prisoners, including innocent people who were imprisoned under the country’s legal system. Tens of thousands of people died building the canal, which was dug with hand tools.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Weissgerber said.

Weissgerber said that he studied the Soviet Union and learned that America at present has more people in prison than the Soviet Union did at the height of the gulags.

“The Soviet Union was not horrible,” he said, adding that he believes women’s rights were a top priority under the Soviet system. Weissgerber in the footage expressed support for fighting if Sanders loses the 2020 election, saying: “I'll straight up get armed. I want to learn how to shoot, and go train.”

The field organizer said that Sanders, a self-described socialist, is “center left,” while he himself is a Marxist, or far left.

A mugshot from the Polk County Jail shows Kyle Jurek, an Iowa field organizer for the Sen. Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. Polk County Jail

Another field organizer for the Sanders campaign, Kyle Jurek, said in footage published by Project Veritas last week that supporters of President Donald Trump might be thrown into “gulags.”

The Sanders campaign still hasn’t issued a statement on Jurek, who was paid more than $10,000 by the campaign. Jurek also didn’t respond to requests for comment.

A number of field organizers for the campaign have since locked their Twitter accounts. Weissgerber’s Twitter account was deleted on Jan. 21.

Project Veritas is an investigative journalism nonprofit.