MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show - Transcript: "Interview with Bernie Sanders."
Interview
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MADDOW: So every day, there is new news on the polls and the fund-raising numbers and even the evolving logistics of the gigantic Democratic presidential primary and, you know, we can run through that stuff any time you want. There is an infinite supply of that any day of the week. But that horse race stuff will always be with us and it is only part of the way the competition is being waged. If you are, for example, Senator Bernie Sanders waging your second run for the presidency in four years, this week, for example, has been very, very busy already and it`s only Wednesday. Yesterday, Senator Sanders announced a bicameral resolution, a House and Senate resolution to declare the climate crisis the national emergency. It is a national emergency resolution. This follows, of course, President Trump declaring a pulled out of thin air national emergency to build his border wall and inexplicably to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia for its war in Yemen. That resolution from Senator Sanders calling to declare a climate crisis a national emergency, that was yesterday. And then, today, the senator released what he`s calling his anti-endorsement list in which he quotes FDR: I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. In Senator Sanders` case, that`s a list by his own accounting that includes a bunch of billionaires and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and titans of Wall Street like the former heads of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, as well as former Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, a whole list of famous dudes who have all criticized him by name. In unveiling this extraordinary list, Senator Sanders accused the people on that list of having a, quote, vested interest in preserving the status quo, so that they can continue to exploit working people across America. Quote: We welcome their hatred. Then, just tonight, Senator Sanders wrote an op-ed in "The Washington Post". The headline you can see there, the straightest path to racial equality is through the 1 percent. Quote: The unfortunate truth is that politicians who take checks from millionaires and billionaires owe their corporate constituents first and everyday Americans last. The black-white wealth gap could be closed by targeting the extreme wealth at the very top. Instead, politicians beholden to the 1 percent ask the black middle class and white middle class to fight over the scraps. Busy, right? Busy. Joining us now for "The Interview", Senator Bernie Sanders from the great state of Vermont, candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Senator, it`s great to see you. Thanks for being here.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good to be with you, Rachel.
MADDOW: I`m not -- promise, I`m not going to ask you horse race and process questions, but I do want to know -- I mean, in 2016, pretty soon into it, you were essentially running in a two-person primary. How is it different to run in a two-million-person primary?
(LAUGHTER)
SANDERS: It is very different.
MADDOW: Yes.
SANDERS: I mean, I think the difference is the last time, we had to win 50 percent of the vote in order to win a state and we ended up winning 22 states. I think this time around, I doubt that anybody will come close to 50 percent of the vote in any state.
MADDOW: Uh-huh.
SANDERS: So, you are talking about candidates getting 25 or 30 percent of the vote. I feel very good with the fact that we have now received some $2 million individual contributions which I think is all time world record up to this point, averaging all of $19 apiece. We have over a million volunteers. We have strong organizations in the early states, Iowa and New Hampshire, et cetera. So, we are feeling pretty good.
MADDOW: Knowing that that ceiling might be different in terms of what`s possible, even for the strongest campaigns in the early states, how do you change your strategy to account for that? Your ad play (ph)? What do you do?
SANDERS: Well, I think it`s more aggressively getting out the vote and grassroots organizing. I mean, at the end of the day, you`re just going to have to get people out to the caucuses and get votes in the primaries in order to win. And that means having strong organizations in the states and having a strong volunteer movement. And I think we have both.
MADDOW: In terms of the character of the primary this far, we are not that far into it. We had the one debate and there`s still a ton of people who are in the field. But a lot of people had remarked on the fact that people are playing your song. That a lot of your progressive policy positions that you staked out not only over the course of your career but in your 2016 campaign --
SANDERS: Yes.
MADDOW: -- are now much more centrist positions among this field. Is that just a matter of satisfaction for you or does that give you new work to do?
SANDERS: Well, both. It is a deep sense of satisfaction. I mean, you followed the last campaign. You were there in the debates.
MADDOW: Yes.
SANDERS: And many of the ideas that I brought forth, $15 an hour minimum wage. Hey, Bernie, you`re crazy. That`s too extreme. In a few days, the U.S. House of Representatives is going to pass a $15 an hour minimum wage. Bernie, public colleges and universities, tuition free, that can`t be done. University of Texas today announced the families $60,000 or under free tuition, and all over the country, people are moving in that direction. Dealing with student debt. Oh, Bernie, that can`t be done. Well, now, you`re hearing a whole lot of people are understanding that it is an outrage, it really is criminal that you have young people out there who can`t get married and can`t have kids because they are dealing with incredible rates of student debt right now. Dealing with climate change as a national security issue. I was asked at one debate, the one that -- I don`t know if it was that you`re in, Bernie, what is the major crisis we face, ISIS, al Qaeda, what is it? I said it is climate change. And people kind of laughed. But they are not laughing today. Health care as a human right. Oh, Bernie, that`s not -- that`s un-American. Nobody in America believes that. The last poll that I saw, 60 or 70 percent of the American people believe in a Medicare-for-All, single-payer program. So, the good news is we have moved -- not only have we moved the debate, we moved legislation in states and in the federal government. But now, what has to be done, Rachel, and I think I`m the only candidate who will tell you this, is that at the end of the day, it`s not good enough to talk about Medicare-for-all, to talk about being aggressive on climate change. What we have got to do is understand there is a reason why in the last 30 years, the top 1 percent have seen an increase in their wealth of $21 trillion, while wealth has gone down for the bottom half. Why 500,000 people are sleeping out in the street, why we are the only major country not to guarantee health care to all people, or parental leave, or sick and medical leave. There is a reason. And the reason is and what this campaign is about is finally saying that if you want real change, we need a political revolution. And what does that mean? It means we are going to have to take on Wall Street and the insurance companies --
MADDOW: Uh-huh.
SANDERS: -- and the drug companies and the fossil fuel industry and the military industrial complex and the prison industrial complex. In other words, we can talk about all the great things we want to do, but at the end of the day, to understand why we are where we are, where the middle class is shrinking, where 40 million people live in poverty, we have to understand the political reality and the power structure of America. We are prepared to take those guys on, and that`s why I say, unapologetically -- I am not afraid of those people. They want to condemn. You know, the billionaires want to condemn, that I`m an existential threat to the Democratic Party -- so, be it. We are going to take them on.
MADDOW: In terms of how that translates, practically. I`m hearing echoes of your first answer in the debate in Miami. When the question was along the lines of what do you want to do first? And you talked about this need for a political revolution --
SANDERS: Yes.
MADDOW: -- and the need to take to sort of take on multi-front battles --
SANDERS: Yes.
MADDOW: -- all at the same time. If you were elected president in 2020, odds are, I don`t know, let`s guess, 50/50 that Senator Mitch McConnell would still be the leader of the Republicans in the Senate and they still hold the majority there. You know for being in the Senate what that means in terms of the power of getting legislation through.
SANDERS: Yes.
MADDOW: If -- I know you don`t want McConnell to still be there.
SANDERS: Right.
MADDOW: If he is still there --
SANDERS: Yes.
MADDOW: -- what would you put on his plate first? What would you -- what will be your first legislative priority?
SANDERS: I`ll tell you, before I put anything on his plate, I would be in the state of Kentucky holding a rally, with tens of thousands of people, to say to what is, in fact, one of the poorest states in this country, a real struggling state in Kentucky, that we need to raise the minimum wage, a state which is really suffering for lack of health care. We`re going to rally the American people in Kentucky. We`re going to rally the American people in Mississippi. We`re going to rally the people in South Carolina to demand that their representatives -- I know this is a radical idea -- actually do what the American people want. The point that I make over and over again, Rachel, is the ideas that I talk about are ideas that the American people want. They don`t get it because you got a Congress indebted to wealthy campaign contributors. And, by the way, whether you call it socialism or social democracy or progressive government, everything that I`m talking about exists in countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, where they have health care for all, where they have strong universal child care programs, where college education is free. These are not radical ideas, but we need to rally the American people by the millions. That`s what I mean by a political revolution. And as president, that`s what I will help lead. We will give Mitch McConnell something he cannot afford to refuse. And that is we`re going to give him millions of people demanding he take action on the issues impacting the working class of this country.
MADDOW: We`ll be right back with Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic 2020 presidential candidate, right after this.
Stay with us.
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MADDOW: We`re back with Senator Bernie Sanders of the great state of Vermont. He is running to be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. Senator Sanders, thank you again for sticking with us. You talked about climate change as an emergency. And indeed, this week, you introduced bicameral legislation with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the House to declare a climate emergency. You have also said just this week that you will be coming out with the strongest climate change plan in the current Democratic field. And I know you haven`t released details, but how do you define it as the strongest? What is it?
SANDERS: What it will do -- and there are other good plans out there. I don`t mean to denigrate other plans. What it will do is essentially tell the fossil fuel industry that they cannot continue to destroy this planet for the sake of their short-term profits. I mean, just stop and think about it. They lie every day. They are obfuscating reality. They`re making huge amounts of money and, oh, by the way, they`re destroying the planet. So, somebody has got to say, sorry, you know, we don`t accept people shooting down other people. You are destroying the planet. Thousands and thousands of people will die as a result of what you`re doing. It has to change. We have to transform our energy system and energy efficiency, sustainable energy. We need a new transportation system as well. And the other point here, Rachel, is obviously this is not just an American issue. This is a global issue by definition. We need a president not like Trump who doesn`t even accept the reality of climate change, thinks it`s a hoax, we need a president who says every country on Earth that, you know what, you are in this. China, you`re in it. Russia, India, Brazil, Africa, we are all in this together. And maybe -- and I know this may be a pipe dream, I admit it, but maybe in this crisis, planetary crisis, maybe we move the world to say that instead of spending a trillion and a half dollars every year on weapons of destruction designed to kill each other, maybe we can use those resources to fight our common enemy, which is climate change. And as president, I would love the opportunity to lead that effort.
MADDOW: Ii think about a corporate-driven effort like that, going at the fossil fuel industry, going at big oil and energy, holding them accountable for their role in climate change and I can envision an agenda like that in the United States. But then when you start to talk about the rest of the world, I think about Saudi Aramco, and I think about the big state controlled oil companies in our economic rivals around the world, and I can`t imagine them not just seeing that as a competitive advantage.
SANDERS: Well, the answer is, is to rally the people in those countries. I think ordinary people in most of the countries understand that if we don`t act boldly, the planet we`re going to be leaving to our kids and grandchildren will be increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable.
MADDOW: But as a U.S. president, you couldn`t rally the Saudi people or the Chinese people.
SANDERS: Actually, you could.
MADDOW: You could?
SANDERS: Actually, you could.
MADDOW: How does that work in Riyadh?
(LAUGHTER)
SANDERS: See if Mohamed bin Salman will let me into the country.
MADDOW: For starters, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
SANDERS: But I do think -- I mean, people throughout the world understand the threat. And we need a grassroots movement globally -- now, we`re beginning to see, it`s especially led by the young people, you know? And I think -- we are fighting for the future of the planet. This is an existential crisis. So, we have to act in a way we have never acted before. And I think it`s the people of the planet saying to oil companies all over this world -- stop it. We cannot allow you to destroy the planet.
MADDOW: Let me ask you about another international effort that has been something you and I have talked about before in interviews over the years. I was struck by new polling that shows that even Iraq and Afghanistan veterans do not believe that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were worth fighting. And there are not big differences between the veterans who have fought those wars and the American people broadly in these issues. And you have told me in the past and I know that you have been assiduous in your work on this in the past about wanting to get American troops out of these conflicts. Why is it so intractable? Why as a -- why are presidents as desperate as President Obama and President Trump both unable to achieve the stated goal of getting troops even just home from Afghanistan?
SANDERS: By the way, that`s a good question. Before I answer it, I`m the former chairman of the Veterans Committee --
MADDOW: Yes.
SANDERS: -- in the Senate and I talked to many of those veterans. And the kind of trauma that they went through is something that we should never dismiss, will never forget. They know, unlike Donald Trump, what the cost of war really is. They saw their friends blown up. They came back without an arm or leg or with PTSD. But to answer your question, I think we need political will here. We need to do everything that we can to make sure that those countries around the world, and right now, I`m not even just thinking about Iraq or Syria. I`m thinking about Saudi Arabia and Iran. We have spent, not only have we lost thousands of lives, Rachel, we have spent I believe $5 trillion on the war on terror, $5 trillion. And our job as the most powerful country on Earth is to bring Saudi Arabia, which is a terribly despotic government, and Iran, which is also undemocratic, bring them in to the damn room and saying, we`re not going to be fighting eternal wars. You guys, we`re here. You`ve got to work it out, but don`t think that the United States is going to get involved in never-ending wars.
MADDOW: Let me ask you on the issue of veterans. You have been a champion of Medicare-for-All.
SANDERS: Yes.
MADDOW: And as I mentioned, a lot of your fellow candidates are now onboard with you on that, including people saying from the dais in Miami, I`m with Bernie on this. What happens to veterans care under Medicare-for-All?
SANDERS: We strength -- the V.A. is a separate entity and it must remain as a separate entity because veterans have unique problems. So, we maintain the Veterans Administration and we strengthen it.
MADDOW: Senator, can you stick with us for one more segment?
SANDERS: Sure.
MADDOW: We`ll be right back with Senator Bernie Sanders right after this. Stay with us.
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MADDOW: We`re back with Vermont senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders. Senator, thank you again for sticking with us.
SANDERS: My pleasure.
MADDOW: The last question for you and it is a little bit of sticky wicket and I do not want you to be annoyed for asking. But it is the thing --when I talked to people about having on the show today, it was the number one thing people wanted me to ask you about, which was the issue raised by Eric Swalwell, who has now dropped out of the race for president, in the debate, when he -- and he directed it to Vice President Biden and his refrain was pass the torch. That you`ve had your chance, you`ve been in politics for a long time and we need younger leadership basically. Basically making an overt age argument for why Vice President Biden shouldn`t be the nominee and implicitly why you shouldn`t be the nominee. You called that ageist after the debate. But I wonder how you grapple with the substance of that argument.
SANDERS: You know, if you look at history, there were arguments why black people shouldn`t be president, why women shouldn`t be president. I think you have to look at the totality of the person. There were some people who are 90 who are a lot more active and energetic than people who are 50. You have to look at what somebody believes, what somebody is fighting for, what their experience is about. Just to look at age is I think missing the boat in a very, very deep way.
MADDOW: But he is talking about length of experience in the political system.
SANDERS: Yes.
MADDOW: I mean, you`ve been in public office since before Eric Swalwell was born. I mean, he`s saying, people who have been in the system, who`ve been trying all this time to make change, you need to get out of the way so that new voices can (INAUDIBLE).
SANDERS: And what is his -- those people`s positions? Do they believe in Medicare-for-All? Have they fought to raise the minimum wage? Have they been a leader in tackling the issues of climate change? Have they been on picket lines their whole life standing with working people, been active in the women`s movement, active in the gay movement? In other words, it`s just not good enough to say, hey, I`m young. Pass me the torch. You`ve got to tell me what you stand for, what your vision of America is. And I think that that is just not a satisfactory explanation.
MADDOW: Senator Sanders, it`s great to have you here.
SANDERS: Good to be with you.
MADDOW: Come back soon.
SANDERS: OK.
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