If he runs for president, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders may have to pick a side

Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday he’s thinking about running for president, but first he’s got to figure out if he’ll rely on the infrastructure of the Democratic Party or stay true to his independent roots.

The Vermont independent, who caucuses with the Democratic majority in the Senate, said he is heading to Iowa to see how people feel about his party affiliation, or lack thereof.

“I am thinking about running for president,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And the issue of whether you run as an independent, with the necessity of setting up a 50-state infrastructure running as a Democrat, that’s something that I’m looking at right now.”

He said he doesn’t know whether Hillary Clinton will run as the Democratic Party’s frontrunner, and “B, I don’t know what she is running on.”

“I know that the middle class of this country is collapsing,” he said. “I know that the gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is growing wider. I know there is profound anger at the greed on Wall Street and corporate America, anger at the political establishment.”