Bernie Sanders Interview _ Lex Fridman Podcast _450(M4A_128K)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The ideas that I am talking about are ideas that
are widely supported. Everything that I talk about, raising them
in a wage, healthcare for all, a tax system which
demands the billionaires pay their fair share. Those are all popularitists.
But people didn't know you got to run for president
and have twenty thousand people come out to your rallies
and win twenty three states. They say, hmmm, well, maybe

(00:23):
those eyes and ideas are not so crazy after all,
and we've got to entertain them. The establishment doesn't like that.
They really don't. They want to tell you, and this
is their main This is how they succeed. What they
say lex is the world is the way it is,
It always will be this way. We got the wealth,
we got the power, and don't think of anything else.
This is the way it is. You have no power,

(00:46):
give up. They don't say it quite that way, but
that's really what the intent is. And what we showed is,
guess what you know, running a a an outside a campaign,
we took on the democratic establishment. We came close to
winning it, and we did win twenty three states. And
the ideas that we're talking about all the ideas that
working class people, young people believe.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
In the following is a conversation with Bernie Sanders, Senator
from Vermont and two time presidential candidate, both times as
the underdog who against the long odds, captivated the support
and excitement of millions of people, both on the left

(01:28):
and the right. This is the lex Freatment podcast. To
support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now, dear friends, here's Bernie Sanders growing up. Did
you ever think you'd be a politician?

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Nope.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Note yeah, I know that you hate talking about yourself,
which is rare for a politician. I would say, what's
your philosophy behind that? You like talking about the issues?

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah? Doctor about I mean, you know everybody talks about themselves.
The thought about me? You know, not a nice guy.
What's up? What you know politics should be about is
the issues facing the people of our country, the people
of the world, and how we're going to address it.
That's what it should mean.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
That said, there's an interesting aspects to your life story.
For example, in nineteen sixty three, you were very active
in the civil rights movement, got arrested even for protesting
segregation in Chicago, and you attended the famous marsh On
Washington where MLK gave his I Have a Dream speech.
What was that like?

Speaker 1 (02:30):
It's extraordinary. Took a bus ride down with fellow students
from the University of Chicago. It was a zillion people there.
I'm not sure if it was the first time I
ever been in Washington in my life, but it was,
you know, it was a very impressive moment. And what
he was talking about with people will very often forget
about that. It was not only racial justice, it was jobs, jobs,

(02:53):
and justice. That was the name of that rally, And
so it's something I've never forgotten.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
What influence did he have on you? What did you
learn about the way he enacted change in the world.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
King was a very impressive guy, more impressive, I think
than people think that he was. And what he did
is he created his movement from the bottom on up.
He developed real organization, grassroots organization, which put pressure on

(03:27):
communities and officials and segregation to open up voting patterns.
And I think what has to also be remembered about King,
which is really quite extraordinary, is you know, he won
the Nobel Peace Prize and there was oh, you're great,
You're wonderful. But then to the end of his life
he took on Lyndon Johnson on the war in Vietnam,

(03:49):
and as soon as he did that, suddenly the editorial
pages throughout America established from papers no longer thought he
was so great. In fact, the message sent out, you're black,
deal with civil rights, don't worry about foreign policy, will
take care of that. But he said, you know, if
I talk about peace and non violence, I can't sit
back and allow what's going on in Vietnam to continue

(04:11):
without speaking on incredible courage to do that. And by
the way, when he was assassinated at a fighting for
the rights of AFSME workers, garbage guys, that little bit
the garbage who were treated terribly low wages, bed working
conditions that went out. That's what the right to form
a union. That's when he got killed.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
So on the warfront. One of the things that people
don't often talk about your work in politics. You gave
what I think is a truly brave speech on the
Iraq War. And in two thousand and two, I believe
you voted no on the Iraq Resolution, you voted no
on the Patriot Act, and you basically predicted very accurately

(04:59):
what would have happen and if we go into Iraq.
What was your thinking at the time behind those speeches,
behind voting no on the Patriot Act on the Iraq resolution.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
And maybe ironically came out of maybe the war in
Vietnam and the ease and lies that people told we
went into Vietnam under a lie. We lost close to
sixty thousand Americans. Millions of people in the Vietnam Cambodia
died as a result of that. See I think twice
about it. And then the warren Iraq. You had, you know,

(05:33):
people like Dick Cheney and others telling us how they
have nuclear weapons and all that stuff, it's the only
way we can resolve the issue. I didn't believe it.
I didn't agree with it, and then turns out historically
I was right.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
What's the way to fight this thing that Martin Luther
King tried to fight, which is the military industrial complex?

Speaker 1 (05:54):
It's huge. I mean, it gets to the broader issue
where we are as a nation. And what I you know,
almost uniquely in Congress talk about is the fact that
we are moving LECs to an oligarchic form of society.
And not a lot of people are familiar with that term,
but what it means you know, we talk about it
oligochy in Russia. Oh, I'm putting this surrounded by the aligous. Well,
guess what what do you think is happening in the

(06:15):
United States? So what you have right now is an
economy with more concentration of ownership than we've ever had.
Right that means, whether it's agriculture, transportation, healthcare, whatever, it
may be, fewer and fewer, massively large corporations control it's
produced and the prices we pay. And then you look
at our political system and it's we don't talk about it.

(06:37):
What is the reality of the political system today, and
that is that billionaires are spending huge amounts of money
to buy this election. In Trump's campaign, you got three
multi billionaires spending over two hundred million dollars three people.
Democrats have their billionaires not quite as concentrated. But at
the end of the day, billionaires play an enormous role

(06:59):
in terms of electing politicians and in Washington in determining
what legislation gets seen and not seen.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
But it's not just single billionaires. It's companies with lobbyists.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
You got it. Let me give you one example. Lobbyists
we pay in the United States by far the highest
prices in the world for prescription drugs. This is an
issue I've been working hard on with some success. Take
a wild and crazy guess how many lobbyists are there
from the drug companies in Washington, DC? Well over thousand,
over on thousand. There are one hundred members of the Senate,

(07:32):
four hundred and thirty five members of the House, five
hundred and thirty five members of Congress. There are eighteen
hundred well paid lobbyists representing the drug companies, including formal
leaders of the Republican and Democratic Party. That is why
one of the reasons why we pay the highest prices
in the world for prescription drugs. Military industrial complex. You
got a revolving door. People go from the military into

(07:56):
the General Dynamics, into lackeyed Martin and the other large company.
And what we see there is an institution in the Pentagon.
We spend a trillion dollars a year on the Pentagon.
It is the only federal agency that canot is not
able to submit to an independent audit. So if you
think there's not massive fraud and waste and cost overruns

(08:19):
in the Pentagon, you would be sorely mistaken.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Do you think most politicians are corrupt in accepting the money,
or is the system corrupt or is it a bit
of both.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
If the corrupt means that, hey, here's ten thousand dollars,
vote this way. Doesn't work like that, very very rare.
Occasionally very very rare, that's corruption. What happens is that
if you are in a campaign and right now the
amount of money that people have to raise, you're running
for Senate in Ohio, you're talking about fifty sixty million dollars,

(08:52):
where the hell you're going to get that money. It's
not going to be ten dollars donations. You're going to
be surrounding yourself with people who have the money. You're
going to go five thousand dollars a plate, dinners, et cetera.
So you surround yourself with those people who say, oh,
these are my problems, this is what I need, this
is I need a tax break for billionais, blah blah
blah blah. So you become you live in that world.

(09:13):
They are your financial support, they are in a sense,
your political base, so you're very cognizant of what you
do in terms of not upsetting them. So it's not
corruption in the sense of people, you know, taking envelopes
with you know, huge amounts of money to vote a
certain way that very very rarely, if ever happens. It

(09:35):
is the power of big money to make politicians dependent
on those folks. And that's why, you know, when I
ran for president. But I probably may be most proud
of is the fact that we received millions and millions
of campaign contributions, averaging twenty seven bucks a piece. I
think in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Have companies lobbists ever tried to buy you, try to
influence you.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
We don't welcome them into our office. I do deal
with these guys, but it's usually a confrontational tone though,
so they don't come into my office very often telling
me their problems.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
So how do we fix the system? How do we
get money out of politics?

Speaker 1 (10:08):
This is not you know, like many other issues. We
don't have to reinvent the wheel here. It exists in
other countries if you go to you know, every country
has their own election system, but nobody has the system
where billionaires can spend unlimited sums of money through super
PACs to elect the candidates of their choice. So first
thing you got to do it. You know, one of

(10:31):
the things like. I found that the more important the issue,
the less discussion there is. The less important the issue,
the more discussion there is. A number of years ago,
the United States Supreme Court in one of its more
pathetic decisions past the Citizens United decision. And what Citizens
United Decisions said is, you're a multi billionaire, you want

(10:53):
the freedom. You're a free person in a free country.
You want the freedom to buy the government. And how
terrible it be to deny you the freedom to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on a campaign to elect
the candidates. And they said, that's that's the that's your freedom,
and that's what citizens here I do just about we've
got to end that. In my view, we move the

(11:13):
public funding of elections. That means you want to run
for governing, you want to run for Senate, show that
you have some support, Get you know, five dollars contributions
from X number of people to show you, you know,
you're not a flake, you have some support, and government
will pay a certain amount more and there will be
a limited the amount of money that can be spent,
so it'll be a real you can run against me,

(11:35):
and I'm not going to outspend you ten to one.
That's what we should be moving towards. In my room, how.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Do we make that happen when there's so much money
in the system and the politicians oh to the people
who paid for their election. Does it have to come
from the very top essentially sort of a really strong
popular populist president.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
But you're right, You're raised exactly the question. If I
am getting a huge amount of money from billionaires, do
you think I'm going to go out and announce I
think billionaires should not be involved in buying elections. I
doubt that very much. So what you're going to need
and you tell me if I'm missing something, But I
pay attention. You don't hear either of the major candid
it's talking about that issue, do you.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
I think what happens is when an individual politician speaks
out about it to get punished. But I think this
is a popular idea. So if a lot of them
speak out, that's why if it came from the top,
if a president was using a very large platform to
basically speak out, it provides a safety blanket for the
other politicians to get it out of the system. But

(12:38):
there has to be kind of a mass movement yes,
it does.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
I mean, and every place I go I always speak
about the issue, and it always people understand. You're a Republican,
you're a Democrat, you're progressive, you're conservative. Who really believes
that we are democracy when billionaires can spend you know,
tens and tens of millions of dollars the buy elections.
So it is a very popular issue. It's important. You're right,

(13:02):
we need political leaders to be speaking out on it,
but we need a grassroots movement to say, when somebody
is at a town meeting, you're running for the Senate,
you're running for the House, what's your view on citizens?
You know, are you prepared to vote to overturn that
decision and move the public funding of elections extraordinarily important?

Speaker 2 (13:19):
So many of your policy proposals are quite.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Radical, No they're not. I beg to differ.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Okay, Well, they're popular, So what I mean is relative
to what the way other politicians speak, it's usually a
little bit more moderate. So from everything you've learned from politics,
is it better to go sort of radical? Maybe we
can come up with a different word versus a more moderate, safe,
ambiguous kind of policy.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Okay, let's talk about it. Fair enough. We talked about
one issue very important, money in politics. Money is getting
money out of big money out of politics. Do you
think that's a radical idea?

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Well, I mean, yeah, it's a popular idea. It's an
idea that makes sense. But in order to implement it
and actually make it happen, it requires, uh, I mean
to flip the system upside down. Right, in that sense,
it's radical.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
In that sense, it's radical. But if you go to
walk down the street here and you say, do you
think billionaire should be able to spend as as much
money as they want to buy politicians? I would say
nine out of ten people say, that's crazy. That's not
what America's supposed to be about. So in that sense,
it's certainly not ratical. Let's talk about healthcare. I go
out on the street, do it. We do a poll.
I've done the polling. Is healthcare a human right? Should

(14:32):
every American be able to go to a doctor when
they need, regardless of their income? You know what people say,
I would say about eighty five ninety percent of the
people say, of course. The idea that healthcare is a
human right available to all exists in every major country
on Earth except the United States. So you're here with

(14:54):
me in Burlington, Vermont. Right, you got a call. Go
fifty miles north to Canada, walk into the Canadian You
walk into Canada and ask people when you go to
the hospital, how much does it cost you which kind
of building? They say, what are you talking about? Doesn't
cost us anything. It doesn't cost as a nickel. That's
the case in virtually every country in Europe. So the

(15:15):
idea that healthcare should be available to all, that there
should be no out of pocket expense because it's a
human right, is widespread around the world and very much
agreed to in this country. Bottom line is that because
of our corrupt political system, we have a healthcare system

(15:37):
designed not to provide healthcare to all people, to make
the huge profits for the drug companies and the insurance companies.
And that is what's happening. And we got to change
that system. So I'm a strong advocate and I've led
the effort on Medicare for all.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Okay, let's talk about medicare for all. If you could
snap your fingers today and implement the best possible healthcare
system for the United States of America, what would that
look like.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Well, we have a pretty good system, not great, but
a pretty good system in Medicare. So it's there for
the elderly. And Lynn and Johnson passed that in the
nineteen sixties. Huge stuff forward. It is being chopped away
by the private insurance companies through Medicare advantage. But if
you strengthen Medicare and you do weigh with the kind
of deductibles the seniors now have to pay, and you

(16:23):
do a way with other stuff, and you say, basically,
right now you're a senior in America, go to any
doctor you want. You when you're in the hospital, Medicare
will pay the entire bill. If you expand Medicare to
cover dental, hearing and vision, which it doesn't now cover,
you do all of those things. And then the next
thing you do is say, okay, to be eligible for Medicare,

(16:45):
now you have to be sixty five. First year, we're
going to lower it the fifty five. Then we'll lower
the forty five, then we'll lower to the thirty five.
Then we'll have everybody in the system. So I think
in a four or five year period you can strengthen
Medicare and have everybody in the system. And when you
do that, this is not just me talking. Number of
studies have pointed this out. When you take the profit

(17:08):
motive out of it from the insurance companies and the
drug companies, you can end up providing quality care to
all people, and no more than we're spending right now.
Because right now we are spending twice as much for
personal healthcare as the people of any other nation. Incredibly
wasteful system.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
So the way to pay for the system is to
increase taxes. But you're saying if you cut that cost
and increase the taxes, you're saying, it's gone.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
And I've gotten my share of thirty second ads attacking
me on this. Bertie Sands wants to raise your taxes
on healthcare. It's true in a progressive way. But right now,
do you have health insurance? Yes, okay, somebody's paying for
your health insurance. It depends if you are working. Most
people get their health insurance through their jobs. Okay, So

(17:54):
if you're working for a large company, your employer is
paying your health insurance and by the way, that comes
out of your wages. Health care costs in America very high,
and your employee will tell you, honestly, look, I can't
give you more than a three percent wage increase because
I got a ten percent increase in your health care costs?
You want that? Or if your union negotiating, you know what,
they will say, Hey, you want decent wages, We're going
up to cut back on your healthcare. That's what every

(18:16):
union has to deal with, you know, every negotiating session.
So we're paying for it through employers out of pocket,
we pay through it to Medicare and Medicaid, veterans administration,
et cetera. What I am proposing is really not radical.
It's what exists in counter or other countries. It is
publicly funded, like the police departments and like libraries are,

(18:40):
like public education. Is this publicly funded in a progressive way.
So right now, rather than paying out of your own pocket,
if you are a family, let's just say you're self
employed right now, and you are you know you want,
you have a couple of kids and a wife, it
could cost you fifteen twenty dollars to you in insurance cost. Well,

(19:03):
that's all eliminated. Will you have to pay more in
taxes because you will. Maybe it depends on your income level,
but it could be that you'd be paying twelve thousand
dollars more in taxes, but not twenty thousand dollars more
in premiums, co payments and deductibles. You save money, so
it's paying taxes rather than paying money to the insurance company.
You got a better deal through the tax system.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
So the most painful thing in today's system is the
surprise bills, the number one cause of bankruptcy, and the
psychological pain that comes from that. Just worrying, stressed in debt,
you got it, and just basically afraid constantly of getting
sick because you don't know if insurance is going to
cover it, and if you're not insured, you don't know
how much it's going to cost. So you're not going

(19:45):
to go to the hospital even if there's something wrong
with you, if there's pain and all that kind So
you just live in a state of fear, psychological fear.
That's the number one problem.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
It's just not just financial, psychological look and I think
you said it very well. You know, I'm chamning of
the committee that deals with this stuff. So I talk
to a lot of doctors, and doctors in Vermont and
all over this country tell me that they are astounded.
People walk into their offices much sicker than they should
have been. And the doctor said, why didn't you come in.

(20:15):
You're six months ago when you first you know, felt
your symptoms. And they said, well, you know, I have
a high deduct above it ten thousand dollars. I don't
have any money to pay. I'm uninsured. Some of those
people don't make it. Other people, and this is what
is totally crazy. They end up in the hospital, a
huge expense to the system, rather than getting the care

(20:37):
they need when they needed it. So that is how
give you another example of it. We pay the highest
prices in the world for prescription drugs. One out of
four Americans can't afford the drugs dead doctors prescribed. So
you walk into the doctor's office they say, okay, les,
you got this, that and the other thing. Here's a
prescription you can't afford to fill it. What happens you

(20:57):
get sick. You end up in the emergency room, which
is an extremely expensive proposition. Okay, well, you end up
in the hospital, you know, rather than dealing with the
problem when it occurs. And what is not talked about,
you know, I mentioned earlier how we don't talk about
some of the major issues. The estimate is that some
sixty thousand people in America die every single year unnecessarily

(21:20):
because they can't get to a doctor when they need
because of financial reasons. And you want to hear even crazier,
One out of four people who are cancer treatment in
this country either go bankrupt or deplete their financial resources
of their family. So your point is right. You know,
if somebody diagnoses you with cancer, you're scared to death.
You're worried about how you're gonna live, you're gonna die,
what's gonna happen? And then on top of that, you

(21:42):
gotta worry about whether your family goes bankrupt. How insane
and cruel is that? So to me? You know, I
think healthcare is what unites us all. Everybody has family,
they get sick, we'll get born, we all die, we
all want care, and we all have got to come
together to create a system that works for all. It
was not just the drug companies, so the insurance companies.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
There's just so many stories, and not even the horrific stories.
It's countless horrific stories, but just basic stories of costs.
Like my friend, a doctor, Peter Attia, has this story
where he happens to be wealthy so he can afford it.
But he had to take his son to the emergency
room and the sun was dehydrated, and the bill was
six thousand dollars. They just did a basic test and

(22:25):
gave him an iv basic thing, and he has really
good insurance and the insurance covered four thousand dollars of it.
So he had to at the end pay two thousand
dollars for a basic emergency room visit. And there's a
lot of families for whom that one visit for such
a simple thing would be just financially devastating.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
And you know what. People know that, and you know
what they say. You know, something, I don't feel well today,
something's wrong. I ain't going to go to that emergency
room because I don't want a six thousand dollar bill.
And what happens He had insurance that paid two thirds
of it, right, yes, so what opms of you didn't
know what happens if you didn't have money, He'd be
handed by book collectors for the rest of his life.

(23:03):
So it's a It is a disgusting system. It is
an inhumane system. But you know, the insurance companies and
the drug companies are very powerful and they make a
lot of campaign contributions, have a lot of lobbyists than
we are where we are. But you know, I think
you know, the American people want fundamental changes there.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
So that's another good example of a really popular idea
that is not implemented because of the money.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
You've got it, that's a wonder And I'll tell you
that not only that, not only is it not implemented
because of money, it's not even discussed. All right. So
I'm saying here, and no one disputes me, we are
spending twice as much per person on healthcare right and
yet eighty five million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, and

(23:51):
our life expectancy is lower than virtually every other major country.
Do you think that might be an issue that we
be discussing.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Again, if a single politician discusses it, they get punished
for it. So there needs to be a mass movement,
and probably, I mean, from my perspective, it has to
come from the very top. It has to come from
the president, and the president has to be a populis
president where they don't care about the parties with the
rich people. They just speak out because they know it's
a popular message and they know it's the right thing.

(24:22):
So speaking of that, you had a historic campaign run
for president in twenty sixteen, and in the eyes of
many people, mine included, you were screwed over by the
DNC as the especially the Wikileak's emails shown. What's your

(24:43):
just looking back feelings about that. Are you angry at
your upset?

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah, of course I'm angry, and of course I'm upset.
But you know, when you take on in this case,
the Democratic establishment who have controlled that party for us,
the moneyed interest in the Democratic body, you know you're
taking on corporate America. When you're taking on the corporate media,

(25:09):
and when you're calling for a political revolution that creates
the government that works for all and not just the few,
you know the opposition is going to be extraordinary. But
what I am extremely proud of from that campaign in
twenty twenty as well, is that we tik on the
anointed candidate of the establishment, and we showed, you know,

(25:32):
we showed despite the fact the entire establishment I had
in the Senate, I had one supporter, there were fifty Democrats,
I had one supporter. I had no governance supporting me.
I think maybe a few people in the House. But
we took on the whole political establishment, and we did.
You know, We've got millions of votes. And the ideas

(25:53):
that we brought forth were ideas that they had to
eventually deal with in one way or another. And if
you look at the American Rescue Plan, which I'm proud
to have helped right during the midst of COVID, a
lot of the ideas that we fought for were implemented
in that bill, and I want to make them obviously permanent.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
And he almost won, and a lot of people thought
that you would win against Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
I think we would have. I think we would have.
You know, I think Trump is a very you know,
I think he's a little bit crazy, between you and me,
but he is a smart politician, and he's appealing to
a lot of the anger that working class people feel.
And you know what, working class people should feel angry,
but they should make sure that their anger is directed

(26:40):
in the right direction and not against people are even
worse off than they are, which is what demagogues like
Trump always do. So, you know, I think we had
as I went around the country then and now, we
have a lot of support from working class people who
understand that there is something wrong and this is an
incredible fact that no one talks about. I'm going to

(27:00):
ask you a question. Are you ready for this?

Speaker 2 (27:02):
Les?

Speaker 1 (27:02):
It's come? Here we go. Over the last fifty years,
there's been a massive increase in worker productivity as a
result of technology. Right, everyone agrees with that. And I
don't know what exactly what it is, but the worker
today is producing a lot more than the work of
fifty years ago doing something similar. Is the worker today
in real inflation account that the dollars making more money

(27:24):
than that worker fifty years ago.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Well, there's a lot of close arguments there, but your
point is well taken. It it's either the same or
a little bit higher or a little bit lower, depending
on the statistics. It has not increased significantly, and the
wealth and equality has increased significantly.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
That is the point. So you would think that if
a worker is producing a lot more, that worker would
be better off, would be working lesser hours, et cetera.
That hasn't been the case. And what has happened in
that fifty years is, according to the Rand Corporation, there
has been a fifty trillion trillion with the t redistribution

(28:02):
of wealth from the bottom ninety percent of the top
one percent. So you have CEOs today making three hundred
times more than their workers. You've got three people on
top owning more wealth on the bottom half of American society.
So that's why people are angry, and they're worried that
their kids may have a lower standard of living than
they in the wealthiest country in the history of the world.

(28:22):
So there's a lot of anger out there, and I
think we tap some of that anger in a constructive way,
essentially saying, you know what, we don't need so few
to have so much in wealth and power, Let's distribute
it more family in America.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
I got to get back to twenty sixteen because it's
such a historic moment. So there's a lot of fans
of yours that wanted you to keep fighting because you
forgave in the end the establishment and join them in support,
and your fans wanted to keep fighting for a takeover,
for progressive takeover the Democratic Party. If you just look

(28:59):
back and had to do it all over again, what
would you do different?

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Well, by the way, in terms of would take over
the Democratic body, we did try. We ran, you know.
Keith Ellison is Keith is now the Attorney General of
the State of Minnesota. He's doing a great job, really
one of the outstanding attorney's generals in the country. And
Keith was then a member of Congress, and we ran
Keith to become the head of the d n C,

(29:23):
and the establishment, from the President of the United States
on down went crazy and they beat him by a
few votes, not a whole lot. So it's look your face,
and you know, that's the exact same position that many
of us are in right today. So people say, well,
why did you support Hillary Clinton? Yeah, what's the alternative

(29:44):
Donald Trump? I think Donald Trump is an extremely dangerous
person trying to undermine American democracy, So I can't support him.
You know, Hillary Clinton. Obviously his views are very very
different than mine. But that in that moment, you know,
that's where politics becomes really tricky and it ain't easy,
and you know, sometimes you have to do things that

(30:06):
you're not really all that excited about. But I think
it was right to try to do what I could
to prevent Trump from getting elected. And in twenty twenty
I did the same with Biden, and we had more
success with Biden than we had with Clinton.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Well, there's this interesting story about a long time coming
meeting between you and Obama in twenty eighteen. I believe so.
Ari Raebenhoft, who was a former deputy campaign manager, wrote
a great book I would say about you, called The
Fighting Soul on the Road with Bernie Sanders, and he
tells the many great stories, but one of them is

(30:43):
your meeting with Obama and he says that Obama told you, Bernie,
I wish I could do a good Obama impression. Bernie,
you're an Old Testament prophet, a moral voice for our party,
giving us guidance. Here's the thing, though, prophets don't get
to be king. Kings have to make choices, profits don't
Are you willing to make those choices? Basically, Obama's making

(31:07):
the case that you have to sort of moderate your
approach in order to win. So was Obama right?

Speaker 1 (31:14):
Look, and again that's why politics is very, very fascinating.
You know, sometimes you can run and lose and you
really win if your goal is not just individual power
but transforming society. One of my heroes you mentioned doctor
Martin Luther King Junior, who is one of my heroes.

(31:35):
Another one of my heroes is Eugene Victor Depps that
ring a bell.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, yes, okay, for many reasons.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yes, all right, Debs. Many listeners may not know who
Debs was. Debs was a union organizer in the early
nineteen hundreds, helped form the American Railway Union, ran for
president I think five times, ran the last time while
he was in a jail cell because of his opposition

(32:02):
to World War One, and got a million votes doing that.
Debs lost badly in every race that he ran. In
nineteen thirty two, Franklin, Dellan, and Roosevelt ran for president,
and much of what Roosevelt ended up doing was at
least some of what Debs had talked about. Debs helped
lay the groundwork for ideas. So sometimes you can lose

(32:23):
and win if you're into transforming society. What my view
is where I disagree with Obama is I think you
have got to raise consciousness among ordinary people. And when
people know what's going on and are prepared in an
organized way to fight for change, they can make incredible changes.

(32:43):
And we've seen that in recent years. You know, today
we take for granted, well, we have a woman running
for president of the United States. I'm supporting. We have
had other women running for president. We have women governors
and senators. Not so many years ago. In the United
States Senate there were ninety eight men to women, all right,
even before that nineteen twenty it was when women got

(33:04):
the right to vote. How did that change? How did
women's role in society change? It changed because women and
their male allies stood up in forts gay rights. You
know old enough to remember that anybody I knew who
was gay, You think they would talk about it, come
out about it. No, they wouldn't. That's changed we have seen,
you know, in terms of civil rights, massive changes. Change

(33:27):
happens when people at the grassroots level demand that we
talked about healthcare a moment ago, we will get universal
Medicare for all when millions of people make it clear
that's what they want. So I believe politics thoughts at
the grassroots level, and that's how you got to bring
about change.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
So just to go back to Obama, though in many ways,
he too is a singular historic figure in American politics
who has brought about a lot of change. He's a symbol.
I think they'll be remembered for a long time. What
do you admire most about Obama?

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Well, I know we're not best friends, but I know
him well, and we chat every once in a while.
First of all, don't underestimate what it was in two
thousand and eight to be the first black president in
the history of this country. And I think few would
deny that he's an extraordinarily intelligent guy, very very articulate,

(34:23):
one of the best speakers that there is in America,
and that he and his family and again it's a
lot harder than it looks. He and his family for
eight years, that's his wife, Michelle, and his kids really
held that office in a way that earned I think
the respect of the American people, even when people disagreed

(34:45):
with him politically. So he deserves and again, ever, don't
end the estimate. I think you know, years ago, they
were people who said a black president and our lifetime's
never going to happen, can't happen to racist thing country.
He did it, and that is a huge accomplishment. And
I think, you know, he has had some significant achievements

(35:08):
in his presidential tenure. He and I you know, did
disagree on a number of issues. I think he will
tell you. I think his public stance is that, yeah,
if you had to start all over again, he would
do medicare for role single payer. But where we are
right now, the best they could do is the Affordable
Care Act. Well, we disagree on that, and we disagree

(35:30):
on other things, but you know, I think he deserves
an enormous amount of credit for what he has accomplished.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
And he, like you, also gave a damn good speech
opposed in the Iraq War before running for president. And
that takes courage, Yes it does, But then it also
shows that once again into office, it's not so easy
to oppose or to work against the military industrial complex.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
It is very hard. People do not fully appreciate how
powerful the establishment is, whether it is the healthcare industry,
whether it's the military industrial complex, whether it's the fossil
fuel industry. These people have unlimited amounts of money. They
are very smart lobbyists in Washington, DC, and they are
very very greedy people. They wanted all I.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Have to ask you about capitalism, the pros and cons. So
you wrote a book It's Okay to be Angry about
Capitalism that is a thorough, rigorous criticism of I would
say hypercapitalism, a certain kind of capitalism that you argue
that we are existing today in the United States, but
a lot of people would attribute to capitalism all the

(36:40):
amazing technological innovations over the past seventy plus years that
have contributed to increasing quality of life in GDP in
decrease in poverty, decrease info mortality, increase in expected life expectancy.

(37:00):
So what are the sort of how do you see
the tension the pros of capitalism and the cons of capitalism.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
You know, some of my European friends they say, you know, Bernie,
in the United States, you're considered to be very radical.
If you were here in you know, France or Denmark
or someplace, you would be kind of mainstream left guy,
not all that radical. So this is what I think.
I mean, I think the best that we could do
right now, where we are right now, is to create

(37:30):
a society which does two things. It encourages innovation, but
at the same time, it makes sure that all people
in a wealthy nation have a decent standard of living.
In some countries, if you look at Scandinavia, and this
shocks people because we don't talk about this at all.
So in Scandinavia it has been the case, you know, Denmark, Finland,

(37:54):
Norway for years that people have healthcare that's not a
big that you end up not how spils what they
don't pay a bill you have in this shocks people.
In America right now we have people will get one week,
two weeks off paid vacation. Sometimes people get nothing. You
know that there are people out there with no vacation role.

(38:15):
You know in Germany you get six weeks paid vacation
and other holidays as well. People are shocked by that.
In America we don't have paid family and medical leaf,
the only major country not to do it. You know
other countries. You know, your wife gets sick, you stay
home with her, Your kids get sick, not a big deal.
You get a certain amount of paid family and medical

(38:36):
leave cosse the prescription drugs are far more affordable. So
what you want to do is create what's called a
social safety net. That means I don't care what your
income is. Of Course you're going to have healthcare is
a human right. Of Course you're gonna have housing that
is affordable. Of Course your kids are going to have
great quality education from childcare, university without much cost. You know,

(38:58):
every country has a little bit different, but there are
countries in the world right now. I think in Germany,
I think college is no tuition free, as I recall,
for obvious reasons, they want to have the best educated
workforce they can. So in terms of government playing a
role in a civilized, democratic society of providing all basic

(39:21):
needs healthcare, education, housing, retirement benefits, yes, that is what
we've got to do. Now does that mean then that
the government is going to run every mom and pop
store on the corner, of course not. You want innovation,
you want you know, you want to go out and
start a business, produce a product, Good luck to you,
make money. But on the other hand, in terms of
even making money, we want you to be able to

(39:43):
do that, come up with good products, good services. But
do I think you should end up with one hundred
billion dollars?

Speaker 2 (39:50):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
And you know what's funny. I did an interview with
Bill Gates, who's I think, the third wealthiest guy in
the country, struggling behind the Musk and Besos, I think,
and he's only worth one hundred plus billion, but he
gets by. And I said to him, Bill, he was
supposed to ask me questions. I asked him the question, said, Bill,
tell me something. You know, you're an innovator with Microsoft

(40:13):
and all that stuff. Did you know that you've become
a multi billionaire, and what's that motivated you? That one
motivated you? And he said no, And I believe he
was honestly, I loved doing what I love programming. You know,
I was a kid. He started doing that. He loved it,
he was motivated by it. Do you think that there
are scientists out there who work in day and night
trying to develop drugs to deal with Alzheimer's or cancer,

(40:35):
that they're motivated, Oh what if I come up with
this drug, I'm become a billionaire. So I think, you know,
we want to reward success, fine, but you don't need
a billion dollars. We want people to get satisfaction from
what they accomplished, the work they're doing, whether it's cleaning
the street or developing a new, you know drug. So
I think we have gone a little bit too far.
And you're right, and talking about the book was an

(40:57):
attack on I called you call it a hypercapitalism, uber capitalism.
But right now, and this is not an American issue,
this is a global issue. You know, it's not an
accident that Musk is over there in Saudi Arabia talking
to the you know, trillion a half families in the
mid East, these guys that were Putin and his friends,
you got a probably not more than you know, five
ten thousand extraordinarily wealthy families who have unbelievable economic power

(41:22):
over seven billion people on this planet.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well, Elon Musk is actually an interesting case because he's
investing all the money back into the businesses. So I
think there is a balance to be struck, and you
just spoke to it, which is we can still celebrate
even big companies that are bringing wealth to the world,
that are building cool stuff, that are improving quality of life,
but we can question of why is it that the

(41:46):
working class does not have a living wage in many cases,
and sort of trying to find that balance.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Right, That is the look. I am no great friend
of Elon Musk, especially in the role that he's playing
right now in Trump's campaign. But is he a brilliant guy?
Of course he does. He work like a dog, of
course he does. Does he come up with these incredible
innovations in companies, Yes he does. Does HeSE your credit
for that, yeah he does. But you know, even in

(42:13):
terms of encouraging innovation, I would hope that we are
focusing on the important issues I would love to see
great innovators figure out how we build the affordable housing
that we need, come up with the great drugs that
we need to solve many of the terrible illnesses that
play people climate change. For God's sakes, all right, do
we need innovation? You know, we're making good some progress

(42:33):
in this country. Should we do more? What kind of
technologies out there can really cut back on uncmbon emissions?
So you know, I hope we focus on some of
the most important issues that impact humanity. But you know,
reward innovators. I don't have a problem with that, but
I do have a problem when three people end up
owning more wealth to the bottom half of American society.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Maybe you can briefly speak to something you tweeted recently
about Donald Trump going to McDonald's and the minimum wage
I believe of seven and a half dollars. Can you
just speak to that tweet?

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Look, nothing new. Trump didn't invent it. That's called the
photo opportunity. I've done wanted two in my life too.
So you go to a place he puts on an apron,
he got old Donald Trump, just another McDonald's worker. But anyhow,
he was Savini did his photo op. That's fine. Kamla
Harris was in North Carolina. Handy got food to people
who are victims of the hurricane. Fine, that's what politicians do.

(43:28):
But some reporter asked them. They said, you know, mister Trump,
are you for raising the minimum wage? And that was
a fair question because she got I don't know how many,
but many, many thousands of McDonald's workers and millions of
other American workers right now are trying to get by
on nine ten eleven bucks an hour. Federal minimum wage

(43:49):
is seven and a quarter. You have people working in
McDonald's right now for sure who are working with twelve
thirteen bucks an hour. So the reporter said, how, you know,
what do you think about raising the federal mirum wage?
And he's, oh, these are great workers of love McDonald's.
So what he didn't answer the question. Well, I think
that in the richest country in the history of the world,
if you work forty hours a week, you should not

(44:10):
be living in poverty. And that means we should have
a federal minimum wage, not absurdly seven and a quarter
an hour, but in my view, seventeen dollars an hour, Well,
that solve all the economic problems. For working class people. No,
it won't. It'll help. It'll help.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
Since running for president, you've often been attacked, especially from
the right, about being worth I believe two million dollars
in owning three houses. So from my perspective, the answer
to that is, most of your wealth has been earned
from writing books and selling those books. And you are

(44:46):
one of the most famous politicians in the world, and
so your wealth and the context in comparison to other
people of that fame level and other politicians, are actually
quite modest. So what's your response usually to those attacks.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
I own three residences, Yeah, I do. I live here
in Burlington, Vermont. We live in a middle class neighborood,
nice house. Guess what. I'm a United States Senator and
I own a home in Washington, d C. As do
most centers. You know, you live there a year after year.
When I first went the actually when I was in
Congress for sixteen years, I rented all the time. But

(45:22):
I got elected. Okay, you got a six year term.
You know what, Let's buy a house. So we waught
a house. And guess what, Like many thousands of people
in the state of Vermont, I have a summer camp.
It's a nice one on Lake Champlain. That's it. Now,
how did I get the money? You're right? I wrote
two best selling books, including this book on capitalism with

(45:42):
New York Times bestseller for a while, and also another
book was a youth book. And that's and I make
I don't know, one hundred and seventy five thousand a year.
And that's more or less how I became the zillionaire
than I am.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
I should also mention that sometimes the word mansion is used.
I think your residence is a quite modest at least.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Most houses in Brooklin not. You know, the middle class
house is a very nice house.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
So when you started in politics, I read you were
worth one.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
That much?

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Yeah, that much does right? Has the increase in wealth
changed your ability to relate to the working class.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Well, that's a good question. And obviously growing up in
a working class family has been maybe the most signularly
significant aspect of my politics. It's you know, I grew
up without money in a family that lived in a
rint controlled apartment in Brooklyn, New York. So that has
impacted me. I'll tell you I don't really give a

(46:42):
damn about money. I drive a car that's eleven years old.
You know, it's an old car and money. Here's my jewelry,
it's a soul of watch. Nice my wedding ring. It's
about it. I don't have a Rolex watch, would not
be interested in it. But I'll tell you what is
has impacted me. My wife, who also grew up a
working class family, will tell you the same. We don't

(47:03):
worry you raise that issue. You know, if we have
to go to the doctor, if our kids have to
go to the doctor, we go to the doctor. I
don't spay up nights worrying. I used to that. There
was a time I have to worry about how to
pay my electric bill. I don't worry about that anymore.
So what has happened? That stress? That economic stress of
not worrying about a financial disaster that's gone, and that
is enormous, I, you know, maybe as much or more

(47:27):
than any other member of the Senate work hard, not
only for but with working class people, and chairman of
the committee deals with labor issues. We have been involved
probably in dozens of strikes all of this country, have
been on picquet lines. So you know, I do my best.
It's a very easy trap to fall into. You can
get separate, separated from ordinary people and their struggles. Not

(47:49):
hard to do. I try as hard as I can
not to do that.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
So sometimes people say, can money by happiness? I think
I agree with you. That worry sort of being able
to fill up your car and not worry about how
much is going to cost, or be able to get
food for dinner and not worry about how much is
going to cost, or even you know, I've I've been
poor most of my life, and I've been very fortunate

(48:15):
recently to have enough wealth and not worry about healthcare,
to have insurance and be able to afford an emergency
room visit. And that worry is just such a giant
lift off your shoulders.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Lexi, I think you said it very well. I remember
even too, and I saw this change in myself when
I used to go and I do the grocery shop.
My life does a lot of the cooking. I do
the grocery shop. And I used to look at the
prices of everything. I do that less now, you know,
I said, the health So what cost fifty cents more
for this can of sluff? So what? But that's a

(48:47):
luxury you have when you don't have to worry about that,
and I don't have to worry about it. But your
point is again to me, I don't like big fancy
cause big fancy homes don't go on. My wife will
tell you we've not been on a real vacation for
god knows how long because I work pretty hard. But
the major thing about having money, which is enormously what

(49:09):
is just what you said. I don't have to worry
if somebody in my family gets sick. I don't have
to worry about that. I don't have to worry about
putting food on the table or paying the mortgage. So
that's what money has done.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Okay, let me ask you about the future of the
Democratic Party. So one of the biggest impacts you've had
is you've been in the fuel the catalyst for the
increase of the Progressive Caucus, the progressive movement within the
Democratic Party. Do you think that is the future the progressives,
even democratic socialist leaders will take over the party.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
That is the most important question regarding to my mind,
American politics. One of the successes that we've had, and
I'm proud to have played a role in this, is
that if you go to the House of Representatives right now,
you will see almost one hundred members of the Progressive Caucus,
led very well by a women from Washington, Giapold, does

(50:03):
a great job. You know. It's people like Alexandra A.
Cassio Cortez, in Iolano mar and many others. Many of
them are young, often women, people of color, and many
of them come from working class backgrounds. So what we
have been able to do in recent years elect a
number of strong progressives who represent working families very very effectively.

(50:27):
The struggle in the Democratic Party is between the corporate
wing and the progressive wing. And you know, the corporate
wing takes a whole lot of money seize its salvation
and getting a whole lot of money from wealthy individuals
and you know, large corporations, and is not very vigorous

(50:49):
in my view, in representing the needs of working class people.
If they were, we would have health care for all,
we would have a minimum wage that was a living wage,
we would not have a housing crisis, we would not
have a tax system in which billionaires pay an effective
tax rate that is lower than a truck driver or

(51:10):
a nurse. So I think one of the reasons that
Trump has had political success is he is not so
much as ideas. Most working class people don't think we
should give tax breaks to billionaires or worry about the
size of you know, Arnold Palmer's Genitulia, but they are angry.
People are angry, and the Democrats have not responded effectively

(51:32):
to that anger. So the struggle that we are waging
right now is the future of the Democratic Party will
be a party of the working class and represent working
class issues with you black or white or Latino or
Asian or whatever you may be, or will it be
a corporately dominated party. That's the struggle we're in right now.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Did you consider running in twenty twenty four? From my perspective,
I would have loved it. If you're in, I think
you would have had a great chance of winning, not
just the primary, but the presidency.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
I gave it about five minutes to him, and the
reason was, we have a slogan in the progressive movement
It's not about me, It's about us. And you know,
to have taken on Biden, who in my view on
domestic issues has been quite strong, would have really split
the Democratic Party and laid the groundwork for an easy

(52:22):
Trump victory, and that I did not want to see.
So sometimes in life, and I know that a lot
of younger people don't agree with me, but you know,
you've got to make choices which are painful. So I
strongly supported Biden because I liked his domestic record. He's
done some good things against a lot of opposition. And

(52:44):
I'm supporting Kamala right now. But I'm doing my best
to see that a dangerous guy like Donald Trump does
not become president.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
And the hope for you is that there will be
future candidates that are populous, that are progressive. Let me
ask you about alc She's become one of the most
influential voices for the progressive cause in the United States.
You two had a great conversation on your podcast and
in general you work together. So what to you is
most impressive about her?

Speaker 1 (53:12):
I really like Alexandrea a whole lot. She is a
young woman who comes from a working class background. She
helped the mother clean houses. She was a bartender in
the Bronx, New York. And I'm very proud that my
campaign for president inspired a run and she ran on

(53:36):
a progressive working class program, and she took on one
of the more powerful guys, a guy named Joe Crowley,
who is pretty high up in the Democratic Party, and
she knocked on doors. She had no money. She did
a very strong grassroots effort and I appreciate that. So
that's Number one. I like what she stands for. She's

(53:57):
incredibly smart, and she has that certain career isma that
you know, may be born with it, maybe developed, I
don't know. A couple of years ago she came up
here to Vermontes when sometime she and her partner Riley
came up and we were out in the street and
people caesa her and they said, oh, congresswoman, and she smiled,

(54:19):
and she had an approach to people which was beautiful.
I mean, it wasn't Tony, it was real. But to
be a politician you got to know how to you know,
you could be a great intellectual, but you can't relate
to people. She relates well to people, and so I
think both from a personality perspective, from an intellect perspective,
from an ideological perspective. She helped create the Green New

(54:42):
Deal concept, the need to create jobs as we transform
our energy system away from fossil fuel, strong out of
a medicare for Royal workers.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Right.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
So I'm a big fan of Alexandria, What.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Do you think is the most powerful and during impact
you've had on American politics looking back, You've been in
it for quite a there.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Well, you know, I don't know that I can give
you a singular answer. You know, it was mayor of
the city and proud of what we accomplished here, proud
of my accomplishments as a US senator. You know, when
COVID was devastating this country and we had a massive
economic downturn, and as Chairman of the Budget Committee, I
helped write the American Rescue Plan, which put a lot
of money into people's pockets. We got childhood poverty by

(55:23):
forty percent by providing a child tax credit. We kept
hospitals going, we kept colleges going, kept people from getting evicted,
helped get public health out that people getting the vaccines.
You know, I'm proud of that. But at the end
of the day, I think what I have shown is
that the ideas gets back to the early part of
this conversation. The ideas that I am talking about are

(55:46):
ideas that are widely supported. You know. So you know,
Donald Trump says Albernie Sanders is a far left you know,
it's like I'm some kind of extremists coming up with
ideas that nobody supports everything that I talk about, raising
them in a wage, healthcare for all, a tax system
which demands the billionaires pay their fair share. Those are
all popularitists. But people didn't know you got to run

(56:09):
for president and have twenty thousand people come out to
your rallies and win twenty three states. They say, hmmm, well,
maybe those eyes and ideas are not so crazy after all,
and we've got to entertain them. The establishment doesn't like that.
They really don't. They want to tell you, and this
is their main This is how they succeed. What they
say lex is the world is the way it is,

(56:30):
it always will be this way. We got the wealth,
we got the power, and don't think of anything else.
This is the way it is. You have no power.
Give up that. They don't say it quite that way,
but that's really what the intent is. And what we
showed is, guess what you know, running a an outside
a campaign, we took on the democratic establishment. We came

(56:52):
close to winning it, and we did win twenty three states.
And the ideas that we're talking about are the ideas
that working class people, young people.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Yeah, you showed that it's possible to win, and that's
an idea that will resonate for decades.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
And out of that came dozens of candidates now when
the House of Representatives, people on city council, people on
state legislature who did win.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
So we mentioned about the worry of getting sick, the
worry of life that many people in the working class
are suffering from. But there's also the worry that we
all experience of the finiteness of life. Do you ponder
your own mortality? Are you afraid of that?

Speaker 1 (57:31):
When you're eighty three? It does come? Of course? All right, Yeah,
of course I do. And are you afraid of it? No,
I'm not afraid of death. What I am afraid of
I think is infirmity. I have been knock on wood.
This is wood I think reasonably help me with an exception.
I had a heart attack five years ago and what
blew me away was that my body failed me for

(57:53):
the very first time in my life. That was studying
to me that you know, suddenly I was in a hospital.
But uh, you know, I have a great deal of
compassion for people as we speak, who are nursing homes
having a hard time walking, Maybe your mental agility is
slipping a little bit. That stuff. That's that's worries me.

(58:17):
You know, we all are all going to die, and
you know that's that. So I'm not afraid of that,
but that aspect of getting older, and that does concern me.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
That said, your mind is as sharp as any politician
that I've ever heard. And also just off mic I
should say that just the warmth that you radiate and
they deeply, deeply appreciate that just as a human being.
So you still got it after all that, after all
those speeches, after all those uh houses, after all of it,

(58:52):
there's still the humility and just the sharpness, the wit
is all there. So Bernie, Yeah, like I said, I
wish you ever ran this year, but I also wish
that there's future.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Candidates and there will be les. I absolutely do it.
I think, you know, yes, about my legacy and the
idea that they're are wonderful, really really wonderful people who
are now got involved in the political process, that are
fighting for justice. That's a great legacy.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
What gives you hope about the future of this country,
about the future of the world.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
You know, sometimes one can become very cynical. You look
at the terrible wars that are going on right now.
You look at the divisiveness in this country, the ugliness,
the poverty, you look at climate change. You know, you
can get depressed from all of that. But I am
lucky in this sense and that I've had the opportunity.

(59:44):
People often what inspires you? How do you keep going?
And I remember it actually was in California where it
really crystallized me. I always at a rally in the
agricultural area of California, and we did a rally. It
was sunset, thousands of people and you looked around the
crowd and there were young people, black and white, and
Latino and Asian American, huge cross section. They're older people,

(01:00:10):
and they all wanted to make America a very much
better country. And it really moved me. I mean, I
see that time and time. I have just been on
the campaign trail and you see great people, really beautiful
people who not interested in becoming billionaires. They want to
improve life for other people in this country. So you
know that I am grateful that I you know, you

(01:00:34):
know it sounds like a platitude, you know, it's what
every politician say, oh blah, blah blah blah. But when
you go out around the country, you know, you go
to Native American reservations and you go to factories and everything,
and you see so many wonderful people. You know. I
have been able to see things that many others have
not been to every state in the country, and that
inspires me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
I share their optimism. I share your optimism. Bernie, have
been a fan for a long time time. It's a
great honor to speak to you today. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Well, thank you very much for what you're doing. Let
me just say a word about what you're doing. Okay,
the compliments here. You know, I think there is a
growing dissatisfaction with corporate media, and not because it's fake
news that the reporter is live all the time. That's nonsense.
They don't. But I think people want to hear folks

(01:01:23):
really talk about in a calm manner, about some of
the very important issues which are not discussed in corporate media.
And I think that's with you and some others are
doing so. I thank you very much. It's a very
important service to the country.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
And thank you from a mayor perspective of creating a
wonderful talent and I look forward to looking at the
at the fall leaves, walking.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Around to quit I think creates some other things.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Okay, thank you so much, Bernie, Thank you Lex, thanks
for listening to this conversation with Bernie Sanders. To support
this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now let me leave you some words from arist
The real difference between democracy and aligarchy is poverty and wealth.
Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they

(01:02:11):
be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where
the poor rule, that is democracy. Thank you for listening
and hope to see you next time.