Sanders Campaign Press Release - Sanders Stops at FDR's Springwood

HYDE PARK, N.Y. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday visited the Hudson River Valley home of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Sanders called Roosevelt "one of the greatest presidents in the history of our country" and said "there is a lot we can learn from Roosevelt's life."

The 32nd president "created a government that stands up for working people, the poor and the sick," Sanders added as he toured the grounds of the Springwood estate and paid his respects at the gravesite of the longest-serving president in American history.

Roosevelt battled his era's elite. He called them "economic royalists." Sanders today calls them the "billionaire class." Like Roosevelt in the last century, Sanders has made taking on Wall Street and big banks a centerpiece of his campaign for the White House.

In a 1936 address announcing his second New Deal, Roosevelt spoke about how reckless bankers, Wall Street speculators and business monopolies "had begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs."

In this year's presidential campaign, Sanders has railed against the recklessness, fraud and illegal behavior of Wall Street bankers who plunged the economy into the most severe economic downturn since Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933.

Sanders' stop at the Roosevelt homestead was a break from the campaign trail ahead of next Tuesday's New York primary.

Earlier Tuesday at stops in Rochester and Syracuse, Sanders had criticized Democratic Party rival Hillary Clinton for taking $15 million in campaign donations and millions in lucrative speaking fees from Wall Street bankers and other special interests after she resigned as secretary of state.