CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders

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Joining us now is Bernie Sanders, Independent senator from Vermont. Senator Sanders, we heard there from Senator Manchin, very clear about his intention to keep the infrastructure talks bipartisan. He also wouldn't totally rule out getting rid of the filibuster, either. He was saying we're going to make the Senate work.

Do you hold out for hope that he may still move on the filibuster?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Well, all I can say is, I want to make the Senate work. I think we all do, the American people do, what does that mean? What it means is you do what the American people want us to do, Anderson.

And the truth is that for the last four decades, wages in America for workers have been stagnant. We are seeing massive income and wealth inequality. We're the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all or have paid family leave. Half people are working paycheck to paycheck.

To make the Senate work, you've got to start doing what the American people want us to do and that is stand up for working families and not just for the top one percent, and when you do that -- that is called democracy. It's called majority rule.

[20:05:10]

SANDERS: It is making the Senate work and that's what we have got to do.

COOPER: So, you're for getting rid of the filibuster. SANDERS: At this particular moment, when you had Mitch McConnell right

on your screen, McConnell attempted to do everything he could to obstruct the Obama agenda and he has made it very clear.

Let's give the guy credit. He's out there. He is going to do everything he can to obstruct Joe Biden's agenda.

So, our only alternative now is to use reconciliation as we did for the American Rescue Plan, which was so important to the American people getting direct payments, cutting childhood poverty in half, extending unemployment, and was a very popular program.

We did that with 50 votes plus the Vice President, and it appears to me that's exactly what we're going to have to do again, if we're going to be successful in creating the millions of good paying jobs that we desperately need, dealing with a dysfunctional childcare and pre-K system, dealing with healthcare, dealing with higher education.

If we're going to stand up for working families, what we need to do is use reconciliation. And of course, we need to get rid of the filibuster,

COOPER: Senator Manchin said that, you know, the Senate was never designed for one party to go it alone, and Manu also asked the Senator if he was open to, you know, to creating just a limited, a carve-out essentially to eliminate the filibuster just to pass voting legislation, a simple majority party line vote.

He said he was not citing the concern that Republicans would use that against Democrats when they're next in power, saying what goes around comes around. Doesn't he have a point? I mean, is Manchin actually protecting Democrats for when the Republicans are in control.

SANDERS: I think not, Anderson, and I'll tell you something. Maybe the first test of this whole thing will not be on a reconciliation bill in order to create the millions of jobs we need and deal with so many of the infrastructure and climate issues that we have to deal with.

The very first test of it may be as to whether or not we remain, for all intents and purposes a democracy. I think you are more than aware, the American people are more than aware that in Georgia, in Texas, in states all over this country, what Republicans are doing in an absolutely shameful, disgraceful, cowardly way is making it harder for people of color, for poor people, for young people to vote.

So, they understand, I suspect, that their agenda of tax breaks for billionaires in cutting Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid is unpopular. So instead of addressing the real issues facing working people, they are trying to make it hard for people who might vote Democratic to vote.

And what we are going to be bringing up within the next month is the For the People Act, which basically says the very radical statement that in America, if you're 18 years of age or older and a citizen, you have the right to vote, that we should not have the crazy kind of gerrymandering that we have in states around this country, and that we should not have the kind of dark money, billionaire corporate money, which is doing so much harm without disclosure.

So that's what we're fighting for. I suspect, we're going to get zero Republican support for that. And the only way we are going to go forward to protect American democracy, to give people in states all over this country a fair shot at electing who they want is by passing that bill.

COOPER: What do you say to the argument that, okay, you do that this time, Democrats are in control, it works for Democrats, you know, two years from now, if the Republicans retake the House, retake the Senate, then they use it?

SANDERS: No, that's true. That is true. But I think where we are, you know, what comes around goes around. But I think where we are right now, when we are dealing a whether or not we remain a democracy.

Look, what Republicans are trying to do now all over this country is stack the deck to make it harder for the people who will vote Democratic to vote and what that means is that it is going to be very hard to have a Democratic Senate, to have a Democratic House. And I think when you're talking about fighting for basic American democracy, you've got to do what you've got to do.

And right now, that means, if we have no Republican support, doing it with 50 votes plus the Vice President.

COOPER: Just finally, I know you've probably heard a lot of excuses in your current politics. Have you ever heard a lamer excuse than the Texas Representative who is saying that the bill that they were pushing in Texas to move the voting time, the voting on Sundays couldn't start until 1:00 p.m., that was actually a scrivener's error or a typo that they really meant 11:00 a.m.? And I mean, they argued it in the legislature. They were arguing this for days. Nobody picked up that it was a typo. I mean, it's insane.

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SANDERS: Well, that is what we're dealing with now. We are dealing -- you want to go into insanity, we still have people claiming that Donald Trump won the election.

In fact, this whole voter suppression is based upon that big lied.

So, these are tough times, Anderson, and they require a tough response. We've got to pass the For the People Act and if no Republican is prepared to support us, we've got to go with it alone.

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

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