Bernie Sanders took to the Senate prior to the Republicans shutting down the government this Monday evening and let them know what he thought about their latest round of hostage taking.

SANDERS: If we surrender to that hostage taking tonight, without a shadwo of a doubt, these guys will be back two weeks from today and what they would say is here is our laundry list of demands, and if you don't give us what we want, we are going to bring the financial system of the United States of America down, the world's financial system down, and if it leads to a world wide recession, well, that's the way it goes.

But what's most important is that we get our way and we don't care about the repercussions. And next year I can see these same guys coming to the floor of the House and saying, “You know what, we want to abolish Social Security. We think Social Security is a bad idea. And if you don't allow us to do that, we're going to stop the government again.” And on and on it goes.

So ultimately, what we are dealing with tonight is an extraordinarily anti-democratic act. Every member of the Senate has strong feelings. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. But when you are in the minority, they do not control the White House. They do not control the United States Senate. They cannot force the American people to give them what they want. [...]

They do not believe that the function of the government is to protect the interests of the vast majority of the people. So these guys are sitting and saying, my God, the government, they shut down, what a great idea!

After elaborating further, Sanders reminded everyone what the American people would really like for their members of Congress to be doing, which is putting Americans back to work and doing something about the record income disparity in the United States. Republicans are too busy sabotaging the government to even pretend they care about any of those things right now.