CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Bernie Sanders

Interview

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COOPER: Tonight agreement on a $2 trillion relief bill that has been hours away for more than a day is still yet to be found, this time because of a standoff between Democrats including Senator Bernie Sanders and four Republican senators Tim Scott, Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse, and Rick Scott. The four senators want to cap on extra money for unemployment insurance, quoting Lindsey Graham, we have incentivize people not to go back to work.

Joining me now for discussion, the bill, also the President's Easter timeline to reopen the country's Senator Bernie Sanders.

Senator Sanders, what to Americans who say they can't afford to have the stimulus bill delayed any further. They want you, your colleagues to vote, send it to the President for approval. What do you say?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I agree I want this thing passed as soon as possible. What happened is Senator Graham and some other Republicans they are just terribly upset that low income workers might receive a bit more money than they otherwise would have earned.

Here we are in the midst of the worst economic downturn perhaps since the Great Depression. Tens of millions of people are worried to death, about how they're going to feed their families pay their rent, prevent a foreclosure, and these guys are just staying up at night, worrying about low income workers getting a few bucks more. And what I have said is if they are prepared to drop their hold, which I believe they are, by the way, I am certainly not going to persist in what I want.

But I just wanted to make it clear. So I will not sit back. Nor should anybody sit back and allow these guys to attack the needs of low income workers, especially at a time when in this particular bill, there are $500 billion available to the President for all kinds of corporate, welfare and chicanery. They don't object to that. They worry about the working people getting a few bucks more.

COOPER: When you hear Lindsey Graham saying incentivizing people not to work. I mean, I know a bunch of people are out of work and they -- the only thing they want is to get back to work right now.

[20:44:59]

SANDERS: That's right. That's exactly right. I mean, it's just, it is -- it is amazing to me that you have all kinds of people here who voted including Senator Graham and the others. They voted for a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the 1% and large corporations. And now they're really worried that a low income worker might receive extended unemployment plus $600 a week. Oh, my goodness. How terrible is that?

You know, I just, you know, it's hard for me to understand that kind of value system and that kind of mentality. What they're going to do is I understand that they're going to bring that thing up as an amendment. They got to get 60 votes. They're not going to get 60 votes, that'll be the end of it. And hopefully we can vote for this thing tonight.

COOPER: You think -- do you think it'll get voted on tonight?

SANDERS: That's what I'm hearing. Although I -- you know, who knows? But I am hearing that, you know.

COOPER: The President yesterday talked about seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Wanted pack churches for Easter. Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel? I think back to you know, I think was nobody November of 1967, General Westmoreland talking about, you know, light at the ends of tunnels and, you know, the war dragged on for many years after that.

SANDERS: Anderson, this is even worse than that. You have all over the world, countries, obviously, including our own New York, Washington state the whole country, dealing with a pandemic, with a huge increase in the number of people who are infected, people who are dying. And what all of the experts tell us is that we need to distance ourselves from each other.

In many states, now, people are being asked to stay home. Congregations should not be any larger than two or maybe 10 people and keep your distance. And you are talking about a president who is speaking in opposition to all of the major medical advisors in our own government and in this country that, oh, yes, come to church, on Easter, sit next to somebody else. Why don't you spread the virus so that we'll never get rid of this pandemic?

You know, you got a president who is arrogant, who is ignorant? Who is self-centered? And to me, I mean this is as dangerous as he gets in suggesting people to defy what the healthcare experts are telling us. So this dangerous moment for him.

COOPER: Even if, you know, by some, you know, miraculous event, that the numbers go down greatly before Easter, though there will still be a need for some time for distancing precautions and other precautions, particularly to protect the, you know, an old, the older, an older generation, the idea to encourage people to pack into a church or any facility. It just even in the best case scenario, that's just not feasible.

SANDERS: I mean, you know, it again, it is in defiance, and dangerously in defiance of what the medical experts are telling us. This is a moment when you got to listen to the epidemiologist, you got to listen to the infectious disease experts, we got to do what they say. And what they are saying is right now, we have got to do everything possible to prevent the spread of the epidemic. That means social distancing. And social distancing is not being packed into a church, or any other room where you can infect somebody else, so that we never get an end to this epidemic.

So I think his -- what he is saying is totally absurd, and extremely dangerous. And it is an embarrassment that the American people have to be told to completely ignore what the President of the United States is saying.

COOPER: Vice President Biden was asked about whether there should be another debate in in April, he essentially said, you know, that the time is done for that. I'm wondering what you made of his response.

SANDERS: Well, I, you know, I don't agree with him. I mean, I think that what is happening right now, obviously, it's a very strange moment for any campaign, and that is state after state I think Pennsylvania yesterday or today is delaying their elections, Kentucky has delayed their elections, New York State considering delaying their elections. So we got a strange moment.

But I think, you know, one of the things that I think that people want is, especially in this unprecedented crisis in modern American history, is to hear the ideas have candidates as to how we got into this disaster. Why do we have such a dysfunctional healthcare system? Why do we have an economy in which half of people living paycheck to paycheck, scared to death tonight, that if their paycheck ceases, how they're going to feed their kids, and take and pay the rent?

So I think we need a good debate as to where we go, not only just now but in the future. And to my mind, if there's anything that this unprecedented moment in American history should teach us, we got to rethink the basic structures of American society and that is guarantee health care to all as a human right, create an economy that provides for all people, not just the wealthy.

[20:50:06]

COOPER: Senator Bernie Sanders. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

SANDERS: Thank you very much Anderson.

COOPER: Up next remembering the coronavirus victims, a journalist, a chef, a psychiatrist among the dead.

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