Former President Jimmy Carter slyly revealed he voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary during a joint discussion with the Vermont senator at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia on Monday.

After Sanders relayed many of the same talking points from his 50-state playbook, he lamented Democrats' failure to stand up to monied interests. 

"There is Wall Street, there are the insurance companies, there are the drug companies... the fossil fuel industry; these are the people who are ripping us off and these are the people who are donating money to candidates who represent their interests and not the interest of the middle class, of working people," Sanders announced. "So I think we need to revitalize American democracy."

Sanders also encouraged his audience to study the French election in order to improve America's disastrously low turnout rate.

"Some of you may have noticed that a few weeks ago in the French election, the first election, almost 80 percent of the French people voted. If we had 80 percent of the people voting in this country, the Republican Party would be a significant minority," he concluded.

"Can y'all see why I voted for him?" Jimmy Carter asked. It was the first time had Carter publicly acknowledged he cast his ballot for Sanders in the Democratic primary. The Clintons and the Carters have maintained a notoriously uneasy relationship for decades. 

During his speech, the former president grew nostalgic for an era when the American people still had faith in their public officials.

"We must accommodate changing times," he said, "but we must cling to principles that never change, and one of those principles is the truth."

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