Independent Senator Bernie Sanders criticized the U.S. for its foreign policy during a visit to the Soviet Union in 1988.
A Washington Post analysis of the video, which was unearthed earlier this year, reveals new information about the details of the then-Vermont mayor's dinner with Soviets.
During a banquet attended by about 100 people, the then 46-year-old mayor blasted U.S. intervention in other countries, according to interviews with five individuals who accompanied Sanders on the trip.
He also criticized the cost of housing and health care in American, while praising the Soviet Union for their lower prices.
'I got really upset and walked out,' David Kelley, who had helped arrange the trip and was the only Republican in Sanders's entourage, said of the now-Democratic candidates comments.
A Washington Post examination of recently unearthed video of Bernie Sanders's trip to the Soviet Union reveals that he criticized the U.S. during his trip to the socialist state in 1988
Sanders, who was the 46-year-old mayor of Burlington, Vermont at the time of the trip, criticized the U.S. for its foreign interventions, and also blasted the cost of housing and healthcare in America
In the video, where Sanders is sitting shirtless at a table with Soviets, he can be seen and heard singing along with the others to 'This Land is Your Land'
'When you are a critic of your country, you can say anything you want on home soil,' Kelley told the Post. 'At that point, the Cold War wasn't over, the arms race wasn't over, and I just wasn't comfortable with it.'
Sanders, who is the oldest Democrat running for president at 77-years-old, humorously referred to the trip as a 'very strange honeymoon' in his book 'Outsider in the White House' since he traveled there shortly after he married his second wife, Jane, in 1988.
He traveled to the Soviet Union with Jane and about 10 others.
In the video, a shirtless Sanders can be seen sitting at a table with several Soviets and singing the Woody Guthrie song 'This Land Is Your Land.'
Previously, little other information about the trip was available, except for the accounts given by Sanders.
Sanders's senior adviser Jeff Weaver said the video was proof that the Democratic socialist candidate likes to form partnerships between groups and people who may seem at odds with each other.
Sanders described the trip to the U.S.S.R. as a 'very strange honeymoon' in his book 'Outsider in the White House' since he traveled there
