Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was asked about the failure of socialism in other countries during his town hall with CNN on Monday.

Sanders countered the question by pivoting to what he sees wrong with American society.

Samantha Frenkel-Popell, whose father fled the Soviet Union, asked Sanders how he can rectify his "notion of democratic socialism with the failures of socialism in nearly every country that has tried it."

"Is it your assumption that I supported or believed in authoritarian communism that was in the Soviet Union? I don't, I never have, and I opposed it. I believe in a vigorous democracy," Sanders replied.

"I happen to believe that in the United States there is something fundamentally wrong when we have three families owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society, 160 million people," he said. "Something [is] wrong when the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 92%."

"And what democratic socialism means to me is we expand Medicare, we provide educational opportunity to all Americans, we rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. In other words, government serves the needs of all people rather than just wealthy campaign contributors. That's what that means to me," Sanders concluded.