US senator Bernie Sanders announces run for presidency

Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont whose 2016 campaign helped energize the progressive movement and move the Democratic party to the left, has entered the 2020 race for the White House.

In an email to supporters on Tuesday morning, Sanders, a self-styled Democratic socialist who spent much of his nearly 30-year political career as an outsider, announced his decision to run again, casting his candidacy as way to accomplish the mission he started in his race for the White House three years ago.

"I wanted to let the people of the state of Vermont know about this first," Sanders said. "And what I promise to do is, as I go around the country, is to take the values that all of us in Vermont are proud of — a belief in justice, in community, in grassroots politics, in town meetings — that's what I'm going to carry all over this country."

He released a video announcing his run on Twitter later Tuesday morning.

Sanders joins fellow Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar, along with former HUD Secretary Julian Castro and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, among others, in the hunt for the Democratic nomination.

Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democratic Party, also ran in the 2016 presidential election, finishing as runner-up in the Democratic primary behind Hillary Clinton. By focusing on income equality and frequently criticizing Wall Street and the country's "millionaires and billionaires," Sanders' underdog campaign received a surge of grassroots support from young voters.

Sanders has stayed in the spotlight since his 2016 presidential run, championing causes like climate change reform and a $15 minimum wage for Amazon employees.

He also unleashed on Trump, calling him "an embarrassment to our country."

"I think he is a pathological liar," Sanders added. "I also think he is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, somebody who is gaining cheap political points by trying to pick on minorities, often undocumented immigrants."