Vermont senator breaks with Democrats on immigration enforcement during podcast appearance

Appearing on the Tim Dillon Show Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders expressed support for how President Donald Trump has handled the southern border crisis. (Credit: The Tim Dillon Show)

Sen. Bernie Sanders praised President Donald Trump’s immigration policy during a recent appearance on The Tim Dillon Show, saying Trump “did a better job” securing the border than President Biden and urging Democrats to return to enforcement-focused policy.

“So long as we have nation-states, you’ve got to have borders,” Sanders said. “If you don’t have any borders, then you don’t have a nation.”

He added pointedly, “Trump did a better job. I don’t like Trump, you know, but we should have a secure border, and it ain’t that hard to do.”

The remarks, aired in the podcast episode on Wednesday and now circulating widely on X and YouTube, mark one of the Vermont independent’s sharpest breaks with his party.

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, arrives for a confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Biden didn’t do it,” he added, faulting several administrations for failing to enforce the law.

The clip drew immediate attention from across the political spectrum, with the Republican National Committee’s research arm posting it within hours to X.

Sanders, who ran for president twice on a populist economic platform, has previously broken with his party on immigration enforcement, warning during the 2020 campaign about the risks of “open borders” rhetoric. He said the U.S. has the “technology and manpower” to secure the border but that leaders of both parties have failed to do so.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that overall [Biden] did a good job — it was not,” Sanders said.

A family of five claiming to be from Guatemala and a man stating he was from Peru, in pink shirt, walk through the desert after crossing the border wall in the Tucson Sector of the U.S.-Mexico border, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023, in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Lukeville, Ariz.  (AP Photo/Matt York)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection logged 2.47 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2023, an all-time high, up from about 458,000 in Trump’s final year.

The senator made the remarks as he promoted his new book, “Fight Oligarchy,” and fielded Dillon’s pointed questions about what the Democrat Party’s platform should be.

Sanders’ tone marks a sharp shift from his 2020 campaign, when he dismissed talk of a “border crisis” and accused Trump of “demonizing immigrants.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a “No Kings” rally in Washington, D.C., Saturday. (Fox News / Pool)

During a March 2020 Fox News town hall, Sanders said he “would not close the borders” even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, calling border shutdowns “xenophobic.”

In January 2019, as Trump in his first term as president made a prime-time case that a border crisis required urgent action, Sanders downplayed the situation, saying at the time “we don’t need to create artificial crises” at the border.

Given that history, Sanders’ new tone represents a striking reversal. By saying “it ain’t that hard” to secure the border and urging Democrats to “have a border,” the Vermont independent is echoing long-standing conservative arguments.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Sanders’ office for additional comment.

Jasmine Baehr is a Breaking News Writer for Fox News Digital, where she covers politics, the military, faith and culture.