A confident Sen. Bernie Sanders predicted Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that he will win Iowa, New Hampshire and the Democratic nomination and take the presidency in 2016.
"And I'll tell you why," Sanders told host George Stephanopoulos. "The American people are sick and tired of seeing the disappearance of the great middle class of this country. They're sick and tired of working longer hours for low wages while at the same time 99 percent of all new income generated is going to the top 1 percent and the top one-tenth-of-one-percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent."
The 73-year-old self-described democratic socialist, who is a political independent, has been making steady gains in the polls against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton - most recently in New Hampshire, where he statistically tied Clinton in a poll this week - and is drawing some of the largest crowds of any presidential candidate.
While Sanders appears to be the most progressive candidate in the Democratic field, opponents are beginning to criticize him for his stance on issues like gun control. An attack ad from allies of former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley, also running for the Democratic nomination, recently said the Vermont senator is "no progressive when it comes to guns," The Intercept reported.
However, Sanders defended his position on guns, telling Stephanopoulos, "I cast what I think was a pretty brave vote banning assault weapons, doing away with the gun show loophole and fighting for instant background checks so that we make sure that guns do not fall in the hands of those people who should not have it."
Sanders breaks from traditional liberal views on gun control and underscores the need for a "national dialogue" to bridge the gap between rural American gun owners and urban Americans who may not understand the former's position on gun ownership.
"In terms of gun control, if we are finally going to have any serious success, what we need to do is bridge this cultural divide between rural America - and I represent the very rural state - and urban America and come up with some common sense legislation which includes everything that I've just voted for and maybe more," Sanders said.
"One thing we can't have, we can't have people demagoguing against folks just because they go out and hunt and they own guns," he continued. "On the other hand, rural America has got to understand that guns in Vermont are not the same thing as guns in Chicago, where they're used to kill kids or shoot at police officers."
Sanders then moved on to talk about his general disappointment with the Supreme Court - particularly its decision on Citizens United, which opened "up the opportunity for billionaires to buy elections," Sanders says, adding that it "will go down as one of the worst decisions ever made."
He said that he does, however, applaud them for the decisions made this week on gay marriage and the Affordable Care Act.
Despite gains made with the Affordable Care Act, Sanders said that it's unacceptable that 35 million Americans are still uninsured.
"Meanwhile, we end up spending almost twice as much per capita on health care as do the people of any other country," he complained.
"We need to join the rest of the industrialized world. We are the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right and yet we end up spending much more than they do."
Sanders said it's time "to move toward a Medicare for all, single payer system."
"I think it's not going to happen tomorrow, but that certainly should be the goal."
