Bernie Sanders Gets Caught Using Netflix After Years of Attacks
Bernie Sanders has spent years taking swings at Netflix. He has blasted the company for tax breaks, higher prices, and what he calls corporate greed. But new Federal Election Commission filings show his campaign also paid for a Netflix subscription from January through March, at $46.79 a month.
That creates an awkward look for a senator who has made the streaming giant a regular target. In March 2022, Sanders wrote, “Corporate greed is Netflix doubling its profit last year to a record $5.3 billion, avoiding over $1 billion in taxes [and] blaming a 10.7% price increase on ‘inflation’ squeezing $1.35 billion from its 75 million subscribers while its CEO became $200 million richer in the pandemic,” Sanders wrote in March 2022.
He also posted in 2019, “Your $8.99 Netflix subscription is more than the company paid in federal income taxes last year (nothing),” The senator added, “We are going to make massive corporations finally pay their fair share.”
https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1508247585059921927
The filings only run through March, so the subscription may still be active. That leaves a simple question: if Netflix is such a symbol of the problem, why is a campaign account paying for it?
Sanders has faced similar criticism before. In 2023, he moved $200,000 in donor money to the Sanders Institute, a nonprofit tied to his wife and stepson. His office later kept sending campaign money to the group. He has also drawn heat over more than $550,000 in donor funds used for private jets during his 2025 Fighting Oligarchy tour.
"You don’t expect a socialist to fly commercial do you?" conservative political communications consultant Matt Gorman said. "There’s no bigger hypocrite than the liberal who chastises us for eating meat and using gas stoves, yet flies in private jets."
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates even interviewed Sanders for a Netflix series in 2024, so the senator’s relationship with the platform is more tangled than his public attacks suggest. Still, the campaign payments are unusual. Records show only five political committees, including Sanders', have paid Netflix for a subscription over the past decade.
https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1196911527204282368
For a politician who loves to lecture everyone else about fairness, this is a bad look. The message is simple. It is easy to bash a company from the podium. It is harder when your own campaign is footing the bill.