Did Bernie Sanders praise Trump’s border policies?

Claim:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s border policies, “Trump did a better job. I don’t like Trump, you know, but we should have a secure border and it ain’t that hard to do.”

Rating:

Context

Sanders made the remark while discussing Democratic and Republican border and immigration policies during a podcast with the comedian Tim Dillon.

In October 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who has close ties to the Democratic Party, appeared to praise the Republican U.S. President Donald Trump’s border policies. Sanders allegedly said, “Trump did a better job. I don’t like Trump, you know, but we should have a secure border and it ain’t that hard to do.”

Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, reposting footage of Sanders’ alleged quote, captioned the video, “This may be the single worst thing Bernie Sanders has ever said, and I say this as a long-time Bernie admirer.”

The claim also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers wrote in, asking whether Sanders actually spoke the alleged quote.

Online claims correctly attributed the quote to Sanders, who did appear to praise the Trump administration’s border policies during an appearance (archived) on “The Tim Dillon Show,” a video podcast hosted by the comedian Tim Dillon, on Oct. 22, 2025.

In a video of the full episode the show’s official YouTube account posted, Dillon asked (time code 29:48) Sanders what position the Democratic Party could take that “is obviously anti-people getting dragged outta their houses, but recognizes that citizenship should mean something, that we should have a border.”

Sanders replied (time code 30:20, emphasis ours): 

SANDERS: All right, you’ve asked a lot of very important questions. Good questions. Let’s start off with the, the basic. So long as we have nation states, right, which we have, you gotta have borders, right? 

DILLON: Right. 

SANDERS: If you don’t have any borders, then you don’t have a nation, right? In a sense. So has historically the United States done well under Democrats and Republicans for protecting the border? The answer is no. Trump did a better job. I don’t like Trump, you know, but we should have a secure border and it ain’t that hard to do. Biden didn’t do it. Those before him did not do it. We should have a secure border, period. I think most people in the Congress agree with that.

Dillon and Sanders went on to discuss other topics surrounding immigration. Sanders criticized “demagogues” in politics for failing to see and address the problems that cause illegal immigration and other issues and instead blaming certain groups of people, highlighting this as something “I really, really, dislike about Trump.”

Sanders also argued that Congress should instead look at “comprehensive immigration reform” that included a path to citizenship. “I think that right now that is the goal that Congress should set upon itself. I think that, you know, that is a terribly important issue that has to be dealt with,” he said.