By Senator Bernie Sanders has hit the road again, rallying crowds across the country with his signature message railing against “the oligarchy.” But while the Vermont senator calls out billionaires and corporate elites, new campaign finance records reveal that his own travel choices aren’t exactly budget-friendly.
According to filings reviewed by The Washington Free Beacon, Sanders’s main campaign group—Friends of Bernie Sanders—spent $221,723 on private jet flights during the first three months of 2025. The first payment came just days before the launch of his “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” in Nebraska on February 22. In total, nearly three-quarters of the campaign’s travel expenses this quarter went to charter flights.
“We will not accept a rigged economy where working people struggle while billionaires become richer,” Sanders said during the tour’s latest event in California on Tuesday. “We have got to create an economy that works for working people, not just Mr. Musk and the billionaire class.” But Sanders has had no issue splurging on private jets far beyond the means of working people, even as he has ramped up his attacks on the rich.
The revelation is just the latest contrast between his socialist rhetoric and his millionaire lifestyle. The Vermont senator used to rail against “millionaires and billionaires” in his speeches denouncing oligarchy—until he became a millionaire himself shortly before his 2020 presidential campaign, at which point he trained his fire on “billionaires.” During that campaign, fellow candidate Michael Bloomberg mocked Sanders for amassing wealth while preaching socialism for the masses. “The best known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses,” Bloomberg said in a 2020 debate.
Overall, Friends of Bernie Sanders, which manages the Fighting Oligarchy Tour, contracted three firms that charter jets: Cirrus Aviation Services, N-Jet, and Ventura Jets, according to the filings. Payments to those three firms accounted for nearly 75 percent of the campaign’s total transportation costs during that period. Sanders has spent millions of dollars in campaign funds on private jet travel over the years.
The campaign spent another $63,830 on commercial airline tickets. It also spent nearly $41,000 on lodging and $248,245 on event production.
Sanders’s team, unsurprisingly, did not publicly responded to the travel spending.
Joining him on the current tour is New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has introduced him at several stops. She, too, has drawn attention for her travel—most recently for flying first-class to a rally in Las Vegas.
The similarities make sense. She’s planning to take his place. Many have viewed the tour as Bernie passing the leftwing torch to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, The New York Times recently explained. “Though there is little agreement about who will emerge to guide progressives into a post-Sanders era, virtually everyone interviewed said there was one clear leader for the job: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
And it just so happened that Mr. Sanders and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez spent three days last week on a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour through Arizona, Nevada and Colorado. In Denver, they drew 34,000 people, what Sanders aides said was the largest crowd of his career. Neither has so much as obliquely referred to the torch-passing nature of their trip, and in an interview, Mr. Sanders declined to answer questions about whether Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 35, would inherit his mantle. But the subtext of their travels appears clear.
She is what’s next — if she wants it.
‘Alexandria has been doing an extraordinary job in the House,’ Mr. Sanders said. ‘You can’t sit back. You can’t wallow in despair. You’ve got to stand up, fight back and get involved in every way that you can. There’s nobody I know who can do that better than Alexandria.’”
Despite the controversy, the tour has now expanded to nine states, with more stops expected as crowds of thousands have come out to rally with the pair. While Sanders’s critics question whether his travel habits undermine his grassroots image, the senator appears undeterred in his campaign to challenge the power of the ultra-rich.
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