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"When people say Bernie is crazy, no. Bernie is talking about inequality. That is the burning issue in the United States."

That is a message that progressives, and particularly Bernie Sanders supporters, have been trying to drive home with the leadership of the Democratic party since Hillary Clinton's brutal loss in the 2016 presidential race often, some have felt, to little avail. But it's no longer a message coming from outside the establishment: it's now the opinion of Tom Steyer, the largest donor to the Democratic party.

Mic recently caught up with Steyer, a California hedge fund billionaire who spent a whopping $87 million on Democratic candidates and causes in 2016 and endorsed Clinton after the primaries, to discuss the state of play for Democrats in the Trump era the good, bad and yes, the ugly. Today, Steyer is an unabashed supporter of Sanders' progressive vision.

Potential candidates who might run against Trump in 2020:

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People who might run against Trump in 2020

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Former Vice President Joe Biden

(Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

(Photo by Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Sen. Kamala Davis (D-Calif.)

(Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

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Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)

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Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg

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Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.)

(Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)

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Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo

(Photo creditMENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley

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Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro

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Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)

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Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)

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Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)

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Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

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Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban

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Environmental activist Tom Steyer

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Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez

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Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton

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Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe

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California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom

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Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg

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Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz

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Former first lady Michelle Obama

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Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

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Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii)

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Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)

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Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y)

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California Gov. Jerry Brown

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Media mogul Oprah Winfrey

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Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.)

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Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Former Vice President Al Gore

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Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.)

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Former Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.)

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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti

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Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.)

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New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu

Albin Lohr-Jones/Pool via Bloomberg

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.)

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Washington Gov. Jay Inslee

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"There is an absolute, unspoken war between corporate interests and the American people," he said. "That's the underlying subtext for all of the public discussions within the Democratic party."

"We're seeing a deliberate attempt to take away [working families'] future by really rich people. Until we address that, I don't think we're dealing with the reality Americans are facing today," he continued.

But Democrats, Steyer said, have yet to develop a compelling and positive message to channel the energy Sanders generated on the campaign and help the party win back working class voters in the Rust Belt who flipped for Trump let alone turn their own base out at the polls on Election Day.

For Steyer, that message must start with inequality, not jobs. "Before you freak out on the jobs question, which everyone loves to do, understand that we [only] have 4.3% unemployment," Steyer said.

"But what we do have is a whole bunch of people who have jobs they can't live on," he added, a reference to the thinking behind the Fight for $15 and other progressive campaigns to raise working class wages.

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The Democrats' biggest donor says the party is blowing it and should get behind Bernie's platform - AOL

Sen. Elizabeth Warren isnt as toxic as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi yet but Republican operatives are laboring to change that, saying they will use the run-up to the elections next year to try to make the rising liberal star too poisonous for Democrats to handle.

The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Republican-aligned groups such as American Rising are testing out the depth of the anti-Warren sentiment, hoping to inject her into Senate races the way Republican operatives have made Mrs. Pelosi a drag for House Democrats.

At the very least, they hope to make vulnerable Democrats have to declare whether they side with Ms. Warren on some of her most liberal causes.

Just like Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren is deeply unpopular with voters and her policies are out of step with a vast majority of Americans, and we think that will be an effective way to brand vulnerable Democrats, said RNC spokesman Rick Gorka.

Mrs. Pelosi has been a staple of Republican attacks, and Republicans say using her against Democrats helped their party win several close special congressional elections this year.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also been a favorite target for Republican campaigners, and now they are adding yet another woman to the list in Ms. Warren, whose approval rating is underwater in states such as Virginia and Missouri where incumbent Democrats could face tough Senate elections next year.

Republicans said Ms. Warren appears to turn off voters more than Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York, who does not register much in polls, and Sen. Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent whose populist message resonates in Trump-friendly states.

Whit Ayres, a Republican Party pollster, said Ms. Warren is less known than Mrs. Pelosi, but a concentrated messaging campaign could change that.

Elizabeth Warren has that potential, but she doesnt have it yet, Mr. Ayres said. It is not unusual for her name ID to be a good 15 to 20 points lower than Pelosis. It is not that she is unknown, but she is not as universally known as the former speaker.

Ms. Warrens office didnt respond to a request for comment.

John McLaughlin, a Republican Party strategist, said injecting Ms. Warren into the races complicates things for fellow Democratic senators, who will either have to side with her, putting them on the liberal wing of the party, or else distance themselves, potentially angering the progressive base.

Her liability is her radical ideas, Mr. McLaughlin said. If Republicans or a political opponent wants to make her a liability to more moderate Senate Democrats, they have to be able to attach those Democrats to some really radical ideas including single-payer health care and higher taxes.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm for Senate Democrats, said Republicans are trying to draw attention away from their own failures.

Republicans will try any desperate and ineffective tactic to try and distract from the fact that their toxic health care plan spikes costs and strips coverage from hardworking Americans, said David Bergstein, a DSCC spokesman.

Both parties have sought to make their rivals into boogeymen in recent elections, to mixed results.

Democrats made modest gains in the House and Senate last year after trying to tie their rivals in congressional races to presidential candidate Donald Trump.

On their way to winning back the House in 2010 and Senate in 2014, Republicans framed races as referendums on Mrs. Pelosi, Mrs. Clinton, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and President Obama.

Ms. Warrens national profile has been on the rise in recent months.

She was a top surrogate for Mrs. Clinton last year and a top critic of Mr. Trump, who returned the favor by calling her goofy and dubbed her Pocahontas in a jab over her claims of Cherokee Indian ancestry.

Ms. Warren garnered more national attention in early February after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, cut her off in the middle of an attack on the chamber floor against Sen. Jeff Sessions, who had been nominated as attorney general.

Progressives said the clash with Mr. McConnell showed that Ms. Warren should run for president in 2020, while Republicans signaled that they were OK with her becoming the face of the party.

Later that month, the NRSC, the campaign arm for Senate Republicans, started running digital ads linking Ms. Warren to Democrats in 10 states.

They pointed out that Sen. Jon Tester received $10,000 from Ms. Warrens political action committee called PAC for a Level Playing Field and that the Montana Democrat had voted with Ms. Warren 90 percent of the time, according to a Congressional Quarterly voting analysis of their records from 2013 to 2017.

Republicans also highlighted the voting similarities between Ms. Warren and Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, 97 percent; Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, 96 percent; Claire McCaskill of Missouri, 88 percent; Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, 84 percent; and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, 78 percent.

Each of those senators is up for re-election in states won last year by Mr. Trump.

Read more:
Republican campaign operatives aim to make Elizabeth Warren as toxic as Nancy Pelosi - Washington Times

Judge Jeanine: Any Politician Would Take 'First Trolley to Hell' if the Devil Offered Opposition Research

Greg Gutfeld reminded that Democrats were not afraid of the USSR back when it was much more dangerous.

"The Dems used to root for the Russians against us when the USSR was deadly and wanted us dead," Gutfeld said on his show Saturday. "And now decades later things are better and the libs are finally seeing red? Save me the outrage."

Gutfeld reminded that Ted Kennedy set up a quid pro quo agreement with Soviet Union officials regarding his 1983 campaign against President Reagan. Kennedy offered to help Russia cope with Reagan if Russia helped him beat Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.

Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer who was supposed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton raised the alarm last week with liberals.

"If info on Trump was offered to the media, you think they'd ponder its origins?" Gutfeld asked.

"Carl Bernstein would crawl over a bed of angry ferrets to get to that meeting, then call the source a whistleblower."

The host also noted that the definition of "collusion" keeps changing.

"It's not collusion for people to chat," Gutfeld remarked. "I've been fighting collusion all my life from media, academia and Hollywood as they trick us into accepting foul lies and propaganda."

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Gutfeld: Democrats Rooted for USSR When it Was Deadly - Fox News Insider

265 + 742 + 765 + 953 + 7,474 = 0.

This fuzzy math sums up Democrats orthodoxy on vote fraud: As the bulletproof evidence of fraud adds up, they still claim, Theres nothing to see here. Not even these hard numbers, based on verified vote-fraud cases, move their acceptance of this reality into the realm of positive integers.

This pathological denial is even more intense, now that President Trump has taken vote fraud seriously enough to appoint a bipartisan panel to get to the bottom of it.

While the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is chaired by Republicans Vice President Mike Pence and co-chaired by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (whom I have known since college, thanks to the Washington Crossing Foundations scholarship program for civic-minded students), its members include two Democratic secretaries of state Maines Matthew Dunlap and New Hampshires Bill Gardner and Alabamas Alan Lamar King, a Democratic judge.

Never mind, leading Leftists insist. The issue is bogus, and the commission is evil.

Craftier liberals have inched away from the baseless Vote fraud = Loch Ness Monster argument. Now, some claim, vote fraud is not widespread.

As MSNBC host Katy Tur recently soothed her viewers: Nobody has found any widespread instances of voter fraud. Well, Katy, how widespread must vote fraud be before Democrats and their defenders agree that, at least, it should be investigated?

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.), a long-time Clinton confidante, vetoed a bill in February that would have required probes of elections in which the number of ballots cast exceeded the number of voters eligible to cast them. How could any honest person oppose such a measure?

During the 2000 Bush v. Gore disaster, Democrats shouted, Count every vote! In their more admirable moments, Democrats were among those who demanded, One man. One vote.

Today, in order to preserve the dodgy electoral system that seems to benefit them when fishy things happen, their battle cries have devolved into Count every vote, but dont worry if some of them are negated by fake ones and One man. One vote. Usually.

This is pathetic. If Democrats will tolerate non-widespread vote fraud, how many phony ballots are they willing to see neutralize genuine ones? 265? 765? 7,474?

And whose legitimate ballots should be vaporized so that, in essence, fraudulent ballots can be cast and counted in peace? Sen. Sanders, lets start with yours.

Read more here:
The vote fraud that Democrats refuse to see - New York Post

Maxine Waters, the lead Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, invoked a rarely used congressional provision that allows lawmakers to directly request information from the Trump administration.

"Unfortunately, our requests to Chairman Jeb Hensarling that he utilize the investigative powers of the committee to look into matters pertaining to Donald Trump and his financial dealings have been completely ignored," Waters told CNNMoney. "Our Republican colleagues must wake up and hold the president accountable."

Between March 10 and June 21, committee Democrats have sent four letters -- two to Deutsche Bank, one to Hensarling, and another to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin -- requesting documents and answers about Russia's influence on the Trump administration.

A spokeswoman for the Democrats on the committee said no response has been received from Hensarling or Mnuchin. Deutsche Bank's counsel has also not answered questions, she said.

A Treasury spokesman told CNNMoney that the agency "takes responsiveness to congressional requests very seriously and is committed to providing useful and appropriate responses to requests from Congressional members."

A spokeswoman for Deutsche declined to comment. A spokesman for Hensarling did not respond to a request for comment.

In June, the German bank told House Democrats in a letter it wouldn't release details of its business relationship with Trump because doing so would violate federal policy laws.

Democrats have been demanding that Deutsche Bank release any internal reviews it may have conducted into loans to Trump and his family members and tied to allegations the German bank helped wealthy Russians launder billions of dollars.

In January, the bank settled charges with the government and was hit with $630 million in penalties over an alleged Russian money-laundering scheme.

Lawmakers have said the January settlement left open questions as to who may have been involved in the trading scheme, where the money was sent, and who may have benefited from the sums of money transferred out of Russia.

Friday's announcement is the latest effort by Democrats to get answers on Russia's influence on the Trump administration. It also comes days after learning the president's eldest son Donald Trump Jr. agreed to meet with someone he believed to be a "Russian government attorney" last summer after receiving an email offering him "very high level and sensitive information" that would "incriminate" Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, according to emails the younger Trump publicly released on Tuesday.

Democratic lawmakers are now trying to force GOP counterparts to say publicly whether they support investigating possible financial connections between Russian banks and Trump officials and associates.

"We will force Republicans to take votes on the record to continue from hiding facts from the American people," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday.

CNNMoney (Washington) First published July 14, 2017: 5:32 PM ET

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House Democrats press Treasury to divulge any Trump-Russia financial ties - CNNMoney