TOO DARNED LONG
FOR THE DAILY BLOG
COMPILATION AND
COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
JANUARY 16, 2020
WHAT FOLLOWS IS
A GREAT NEW YORK TIMES INTERVIEW WITH BERNIE SANDERS FROM LATE DECEMBER LAST
YEAR. WITH NO MORE INTRODUCTION, I AM DEPOSITING IT HERE. IT IS SEVERAL PAGES
LONG, BUT IT’S WORTH THE EFFORT.
THIS IS A VERY,
VERY GOOD INTERVIEW WITH BERNIE. IT’S ALSO QUITE LONG, BUT IT SHOWS HIM TO BE
THE COHERENT, HONEST, POLITE PERSON THAT HE IS WHEN HE ISN’T BEING HARASSED. IF
YOU PUSH HIM TOO FAR YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF COUNTING YOUR FINGERS TO SEE IF YOU
STILL HAVE THEM ALL. THAT ISN’T A TOTALLY BAD THING, IN MY VIEW. I’M A
SURVIVALIST, METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/13/opinion/bernie-sanders-nytimes-interview.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
OPINION
THE EDITORIAL
BOARD
Bernie Sanders
Senator from
Vermont
The editorial
board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise,
research, debate and certain longstanding values.
This interview
was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times, which will announce
its Democratic primary endorsement on Jan. 19.
Why Bernie
Sanders animates so many young people on the campaign trail is instantly
recognizable: The senator from Vermont offers an agenda of transformational
change, promising to be as grass-roots as he is stubborn. On Dec. 2, he spent
90 minutes with the Times editorial board, [Related: What Is an Editorial
Board?] sparring over issues from foreign policy and climate change to
antitrust regulation and gun violence, and tackled questions on health policy
that went beyond his well-known Medicare for All proposal.
The board
pressed him on how he plans to carry out his ambitious policy ideas if faced
with the Republican and Mitch McConnell-led Senate that stymied so many of
President Barack Obama’s proposals. He also answered questions on his history
of support for left-wing Latin American political movements, given the
corruption and even violence that have plagued some of them in recent years.
And he spoke to concerns about his personal health, after his heart attack in
October.
The vision
Senator Sanders presented is one of ambitious progress. The editorial board
challenged him to detail how that vision would be executed, especially given
his age, his lukewarm record on bipartisan achievements and the deeply
polarized state of the nation.
Here is a
transcript, annotated in blue, of the 90-minute discussion on Dec. 3, which was
filmed for a special episode of “The Weekly,” The Times’s TV show on FX and
Hulu. [Related: Learn more about “The Choice”, or meet the editorial board
members]
FOR NOTEWORTHY
DIALOGUES ON...
IMMIGRATIONRACESUPREME
COURT
Kathleen
Kingsbury: Senator Sanders, thank you so much for coming. We all know your bio.
We’ve watched the debates. Most of us have actually met you in the past, we’ve
heard you talk a lot about health care. The Democratic candidates spent a total
of about 90 minutes discussing health care during the first three debates,
twice as much as they did on climate change and foreign policy. and [sic] the
Middle East and climate, so we’re hoping to focus on a few questions that we
have not heard you answer on the campaign trail. I wanted to start with: The
revolution, like the one you’re proposing, overhauls everything, but can you
walk us —
Not quite
everything.
KK: Quite a few
things. Can you walk us through what the first 100 days will look like,
though?Some of the Democratic contenders, including Senator Amy Klobuchar, have
released plans for their first 100 days in office; Senator Sanders has not,
though he has made a number of commitments including one to legalize marijuana
within that window. What are your priorities? What do you want to do while you
have the momentum of entering office?
It’s going to
be a busy hundred days. In fact, I’ve made enough promises that I think I’m
going to be up all night on my first day. I’m going to go to bed at 5 in the
morning. I think the most important point aside from the legislation, which
I’ll get into, is to convince the American people that in fact we can have a
government that represents working people and not just the 1 percent. And that
will mean, by the way, that I suspect we’re going to use Air Force One quite a
bit. We’re going to get around the country, we’re not just going to be in the
Oval Office.
But obviously
the legislation that we’re going to introduce will deal with climate change,
which I consider to be an enormous threat, not only to this country, but to the
planet. We’ll introduce Medicare for All legislation in the first week because
I think it’s high time the United States join the rest of the industrialized
world in guaranteeing health care to all people. We will be introducing
legislation not dissimilar to what passed the House raising the minimum wage to
a living wage.In July, the House of Representatives passed legislation that
would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by October 2025, raising
the wages of as many as 27 million Americans. Though Senator Sanders wrote a
letter calling on Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, to bring the
Raise the Wage Act for a vote, it has languished. We’ll be introducing
legislation to rebuild a crumbling infrastructure, making public colleges and
universities tuition-free. In other words, what I believe is when you rally the
American people around an agenda that works for working people, we can do more
than one thing at a time. I’m asked every single day, “What’s your top
priority?” There is no top priority. The top priority is to create a government
that works for all of us, not just the people on top.
KK: That’s a
really ambitious agenda. What of that legislation do you think could pass a
Mitch McConnell Senate?
I think, and
thank you for asking that, I need a minute on this one, O.K.? Because I want to
just convey to you that I look at the world maybe a little differently than you
do, and I say that in due respect. When I talk about a political revolution, it
means being an administration unprecedented, certainly in the modern history of
this country, maybe going back to F.D.R.“When I’m president I won’t just be
commander in chief, I’ll also be organizer in chief,” Senator Sanders has said.
There’s some precedent for that sort of campaign pitch: During Mr. Obama’s 2008
run, a number of commentators noted his community organizing background and suggested
that he might be America’s first organizer in chief, though some noted that he
failed to provide a long-term engagement strategy for the movement of two
million progressives he built during his campaign. Maybe even beyond F.D.R. So
to me, what my administration is about is not sitting with Mitch in the Oval
Office or wherever it is, negotiating something. It is rallying the American
people around an agenda that they already support. All right? This is, I think,
what makes me a little bit different than other candidates, and that is not
only will I be commander in chief, I will be organizer in chief.
And I think the
agenda that we have brought out in almost every respect is supported by the
American people. So one of my first stops, by the way, will be in Kentucky, a
state that is struggling very hard. One of the poorest. I love the people in
Kentucky. I’ve been there and we, you know, and I will be back, but I think,
I’m sorry ——
KK: I was just
going to ask, how do you respond to studies that show that you have one of the
worst records in terms of bipartisan deal-making in the legislature right now?A
2019 study by the Lugar Center and Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy
found that Senator Sanders was the senator least likely to co-sponsor legislation
across party lines.
Really?
TUNE IN FOR A
SPECIAL ENDORSEMENT EPISODE OF “THE WEEKLY”
FX JAN. 19 HULU JAN. 20
1:37
‘People are
Susceptible to the Blame Game’
This video
excerpt has been edited by “The Weekly.”
KK: Make the
case for us that you’re a deal maker.
Well, first of
all, I’m not quite sure — I have not seen that study. You may want to go back
to my role in the House where year after year after year, guess which member of
Congress got more amendments passed on the floor of the House than any other in
a bipartisan way.From 1995 to 2007, Mr. Sanders, then a representative, passed
17 amendments by a recorded roll call vote, more than any other member of the
Republican-controlled House. In 2005, Rolling Stone named him the “amendment
king” of the House. This is not necessarily evidence of working across the
aisle to sponsor legislation. So I don’t accept that.
But, second of
all, the point that I am making is that the way you bring about real change in
this country, what the history of America is about is when millions of people
stand up for justice. So again, when I say to you — in due respect, and I mean
that — we look at the world differently. You’re saying, how do I negotiate with
Mitch McConnell? And I’ll tell you how I negotiate. Because when the people of
Kentucky are demanding to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour or health care
for all or making their schools, public colleges and universities tuition-free,
that’s the basis of negotiation. O.K.?
Four years ago
when I was in this room,All but three members of the current editorial board
joined after Mr. Sanders’s endorsement interview in 2015. I suspect, talking
about an agenda, many of the people in this room — I don’t know how many of you
were here — thought that the ideas that I talked about, “What crazy ideas,
right? Raise the minimum wage to $15? Oh, Bernie, don’t you know, federal
minimum wage is seven and a quarter. Who are you going to negotiate with?”
Seven states have passed that already, including New York State, and so has the
House of Representatives. That’s how change comes about: You make an offer to
Mitch McConnell that he cannot refuse, and that is that the American people
want to move in a different direction.
KK: Well, we
continuously see gun safety legislation die in the Senate.
Yes.
KK: Legislation
extremely popular with the American people. The vast majority of Americans
believe in, for instance, expanded gun ——
Absolutely.
KK:——
background checks. So I guess I’m curious how it will be different.
Again, we do
live in different worlds.
KK: Yes.
Bernie Sanders
at a campaign rally in Greenville, S.C. Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New
York Times
You know,
again, we do live in different worlds. O.K.? I’ve just given you an example. We
four years ago, as a fairly unknown senator from a small state, we helped
transform political discussion in America and made ideas which were thought to
be radical and extreme kind of mainstream and adopted by many of my Democratic
colleagues and opponents. All right? Think what you could do as president of
the United States.
All right.
Under my administration, the N.R.A. will not determine gun policy. All right,
so I’m asking you to imagine something that you haven’t seen in your lifetime,
and I know — that’s fair enough, that’s difficult. I was mayor of the city of
Burlington. You wrote an article — you know, as some of you may know, I’m not
always pleased by what The New York Times writes about me, but you had a good
article last week by Alexander Burns,Read “Bernie Sanders vs. the Machine” by
Alexander Burns from Nov. 27 here. I think, talking about a little bit of what
I did in Burlington.
When I became
mayor, there were 13 members on the board [of aldermen]. Eleven of them were
opposed to me. I never had a majority in eight years. We transformed the city.
How did I do that? I did that because we went, in fact, to the people. We
doubled voter turnout in a four-year period. Doubled voter turnout. I won
working-class wards 2 to 1 or 3 to 1, all right? And we made the board of
aldermen a kind of an offer that they couldn’t refuse. They were looking around
them, and they were saying, “Oh my God, Bernie does have the support of the
people. Am I going to give him everything he wants?” In a recent interview,
Senator Sanders said that if elected president he hopes to replicate his
mayoral strategy “on a somewhat larger scale.” Senator Sanders won the 1983
Burlington, Vt., mayoral election in a landslide by casting himself as a
champion of the people against the establishment. They didn’t, but we went a
very long way. So the main point here is to change political consciousness in
America. I think we have already gone some way in doing that. As president of
the United States, I will go a lot further.
KK: I want to
give my colleagues some opportunities to ask some questions as well.
Nick Fox: Can I
just follow up on that one question? Given what we’ve gone through over the
last three years when Democrats hear about the president flying around the
country holding rallies, they might cringe. And I’m wondering how you flying
around the country in 2021 rallying the people would be different than what
Donald Trump has been doing?
Well, I don’t
know if I should be insulted by that question. I’ve spent my life fighting
against everything that Donald Trump stands for. O.K., but too — as I look at
this country right now, what I see, and having been to virtually every state in
this country, I think you have a people were very disillusioned with the
political process, which is one of the reasons we have the demagogue in the
White House right now. And I think the goal of a president who speaks for the
American people, who believes in the American people is to rally them around
ideas that they already believe in.
So, if I hold a
rally, it’s not to attack undocumented people or African-American people, to
try to divide the country up. It’s quite the contrary: to bring people
together. Now you got in people like Mitch McConnell, somebody who, to his
credit, believes that we should cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and
give tax breaks to billionaires. If 10 percent of the people in Kentucky agree
with that, I would be surprised.Andy Beshear, a Democrat, was elected governor
of Kentucky in November, defeating the incumbent, Matt Bevin, in a race that
focused in part on Mr. Bevin’s unpopular cuts to health and social services
including Medicaid. And as president of the United States, I would make that
clear to the people of Kentucky.
KK: Jeneen.
Jeneen Interlandi:
Thank you so much for joining us, Senator. You know we’ve talked a lot about
health care reform in the debates and throughout the season, and it’s obviously
very important, but it’s not the only thing that determines health. So what I
want to talk about is what are some of the other things that you’ll focus on as
president to improve the nation’s health?
BS: Great
point. In fact, medical care is maybe not the most important point in
determining people’s health. We have to do a lot better in terms of disease
prevention. We have to figure out a way to improve dietary habits in this
country. To be honest with you, obesity is an awful problem leading to
diabetes. We have to deal better with exercise. What we also have to do is deal
with issues like pollution and environmental degradation. You go to a few miles
away from here in the Bronx and a significant number of the children are
dealing with asthma because of pollution. And pollution kills all over the
world, just a whole lot of people. So that speaks through a strong approach
toward environmental protection, cleaning up our air, cleaning up our water.
God, one of the most emotional and difficult meetings I ever went to in my life
was in Flint, Mich., a number of years ago.As a candidate in 2016, Senator Sanders
visited Flint at the height of its water crisis and participated in a community
forum where residents called on the government for national aid. The only Flint
aid given so far by the Trump administration has been money that President
Obama approved in 2016. Senator Sanders also returned to Flint and met with
residents in 2018. Talking to parents in terms of what happened to their kids
because of lead in the water, all right? So it means creating an overall
environment which is clean, which is healthy.
JI: How would
you go about doing that? Are there specific policies or programs that —
policies, for example — you would reverse that have been enacted in the past
four years? Are there specific things that you would target?
Well needless
to say, I would reverse all of the executive orders that Trump — or virtually
all of them. Trump has deregulated and weakened the E.P.A. I would strengthen
it. You know, I don’t think it’s a radical idea. And by the way, I don’t know
if you know it or not — I mean, I was surprised to learn — you know, believe
me, it’s not just Flint, Mich., that has a problem with drinking water. It
exists — in California, you’ve got thousands and thousands of homes that cannot
drink the waterMore than 300 public water systems in California supply unsafe
drinking water, according to data collected by the California State Resources
Control Board. That means more than a million Californians are exposed to
unsafe drinking water annually. Gov. Gavin Newsom allocated $168 million to
water system improvements in 2018. coming out of their tap. So you know, for
me, a clean environment is a fairly fundamental right of the American people,
and we will use all the resources we have to make that happen.
JI: Do you
believe that flavored e-cigarettes should be banned? How would you tackle the
vaping-related health crisis?
Yeah I do. I
think that they already seem to be causing serious health problems. Campaign
finance reports reveal that the Sanders campaign has accepted donations from
Juul Labs employees. The campaign does not appear to have taken an official
stance on a flavored e-cigarette ban, but when reports of the Trump
administration’s ban surfaced, Senator Sanders tweeted, “Now do AR-15s.”
Whether a ban is a good idea has not been established.But I think, you know,
the answer is yes, but I think that above and beyond that, you know, we have to
look at things like the tobacco industry again, who are selling a product that
kills people. And by the way, and I hope we’ll get to this later, we will get
to it because I’ll talk about it. And that is climate change. And you have an
industry out there called the fossil fuel industry that makes billions of
dollars every year, and their product is destroying the planet.
JI: Sure.
What do we do
about that in terms of health? Talking about health, the question is whether
the planet survives in the indefinite future. So, I think you will find my
administration very aggressive. And then you’ve got food manufacturers, who
quite intentionally are putting a lot of sugar into their products, and you
know, causing health problems with the kids. These are very important issues.
Health care is
one thing. Making sure that people have access to doctors. Or doing a better
job preventing disease, is something we have a long way to go. The last point I
would make on that, as we reform health care, and I believe in Medicare for
all. Primary health care. The ability to people to go to a doctor, when they
need to go to a doctor in their community, is an enormously important issue.
So, in the middle of a dysfunctional health care system, one of the worst
problems is lack of access to primary health care.
JI: Just one
final question, with respect to public health, on vaccine hesitancy and how you
might combat that?The Centers for Disease Control found that the vaccination
rate for measles, mumps and rubella in kindergartners slipped in the 2017-2018
school year for the third year in a row. The World Health Organization recently
cited vaccine hesitancy as a top threat to global health. How you would address
things that are impacted by waning public health infrastructure, and lack of ——
I’m sorry?
JI: With
respect to public health, for example, vaccine hesitancy. How would you combat
that? What would you do to fortify the C.D.C. for example?
Well, I would —
I mean, I think it is — we’re already seeing measles epidemics, or problems
arising, and we will be very aggressive, in making certain that kids get the
inoculations they need, to prevent diseases, which are contagious.
KK: What does
that mean? Does that mean making vaccines required?
I haven’t
thought a whole lot about that particular issue, but it may well mean that. I
mean, if it was your kid, if you decide, for whatever reason, not to vaccinate
your kid, and that kid goes to the school, and gets my kid sick, I don’t grant
you the right to get my kid sick.
KK: I agree
with you.
JI: Do you
think there’s any circumstance under which families should have the right to
exempt their children from vaccines that have been deemed mandatory by the
C.D.C. now?
Again, I
haven’t thought a whole lot about that, but I think — I suppose if you want to
live out in the desert by yourself, in an isolated way, and you’re not going to
get anybody else sick, maybe.The Sanders campaign hasn’t recently commented on
vaccine hesitancy, but in 2015 Senator Sanders said that he is “sensitive to
the fact that there are some families who disagree” about efficacy of vaccines
but thinks it is “wrong” for a child suffering from illness to threaten the
health of their classmates. But, generally speaking, if your child, or anybody
else, has the potential to get other people sick, I think there is an
overbearing public responsibility to make sure you don’t get other people sick.
Aisha Harris:
Thank you for your time, Senator. Now I’d like to turn to your health for a
moment. Do you know when you plan to release your complete health records to
the public?
We hope to — I
want to make sure that it is complete. So we hope to do that, the goal is by
the end of the year.Senator Sanders released letters from his doctors declaring
him healthy on Dec. 30. I won’t swear to you. It may be a few days later, or a
week or two later, but we will release them fully.
AH: And after
the artery blockage that occurred earlier this fall,Senator Sanders, who is 78,
had a heart attack in early October. It took his campaign three days to
disclose the information, raising concerns about both his health and
transparency. there’s obviously some concern among voters about your health.
What are you doing to take care of yourself now? [SANDERS LAUGHS]
Thank you! My
wife watches me very carefully. Don’t tell her we had spare ribs last night,
please. Don’t let her know that. It was a good place.
Lauren Kelley:
This is on record. [GROUP LAUGHS]
I’m eating
better. I’m exercising. Well, not as much as I should. It’s hard when you’re on
the campaign trail, but I am trying to do better.
KK: How do you
answer comments by Jimmy Carter, for instance, that he wouldn’t have been able
to do the job of the presidency at age 80?In September, Mr. Carter said that
the presidency requires being “very flexible with your mind” and he does not
think he would have been able to handle the duties of the office at age 80.
Should there be an age limit?
No. There
should not be an age limit. Look, this issue of age, it’s a fair question. But
I think we look at the totality of the human beings, and some people say,
“Well, he’s kind of 78. He’ll be 80 when he’s inaugurated.” That’s an issue. I
got it. It is an issue. But some person who is 80 is different than other
people who are 80. But it’s not just age. You have to look at what have you
done with your lifetime? What’s your record? What do you stand for? What fights
have you fought? What is your record? So, I think people will look at the
totality of the candidates.
And I’ll tell
you what the advantage — if there’s an advantage of being 78 — is that I have
been doing what I do for a long time. So, if you want to get your researchers
to take a look at my record, what you’ll find out is I have been on more picket
lines than probably all of my opponents combined, because I believe in workers’
rights. In terms of Medicare for All, this is not a new idea for me. Trust me.
I was talking about that, going up to Canada, getting Canadians to come to talk
about it when I was mayor of the city of Burlington. Taking on the
pharmaceutical industry: 20 years ago I took a bus load of Vermonters across
the Canadian border to buy tamoxifen, a breast cancer drug, for one-tenth the
price. So, the advantage in the sense of age, is that what I do today, is by
and large what I’ve been doing my whole life. Senator Sanders has made his
ideological consistency a focal point of his campaign. His calls to narrow the
wealth gap have been longstanding, for example; in 1976 in a gubernatorial
debate, he said that “the fundamental issue facing us in the state” is the
excesses of the richest 1 percent. After the interview, one board member noted,
“I just found it interesting that he said, ‘I’m consistent. That’s my whole
story.’ And then his answer on gun control is, ‘I haven’t said that recently.’
And his answer on immigrants is, ‘I’ve changed my mind.’ Sort of a conflict
there between consistency and new ideas.” Gun safety and immigration are two
issues Mr. Sanders has, in the past, been out of lock step with many
Democrats.Now, you may like it. You may not like it. Ain’t going to change when
I get to the White House. And I see that as an advantage. People know who I am.
What I stand for. Some like it, some don’t. But the president I will be is not
different than the guy I’ve been for the last 30, 40 years.
Mara Gay:
Senator, do you have a workout routine? Are you a gym rat?
I wish I did.
My daughter thinks I should. I don’t. And I’ll tell you something. You asked me
a personal question. The heart attack was a shock to me. Not physically as much
as it was intellectually, because I have been blessed — this is not wood, I
know, whatever it is —The senator knocked on the conference table. Its exact
material is unknown. with good health my whole life.
I was a kid
growing up in New York City. I was a long-distance runner, so I could run
forever. I was a pretty good runner.Senator Sanders told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that
he was a top high school athlete. He played basketball and took third place in
New York City’s indoor one-mile race. And the idea that my body malfunctioned
on that day was shocking. I couldn’t believe it when the doctor told me. I
really couldn’t believe it. So, to answer your question, I am going to do my
best. I see it as a public responsibility. I don’t have — I should, and maybe
my daughter is right. She’s into yoga. She’s a yoga instructor. She’s been
trying to get me to do this. You agree? Right?
MG: Sounds like
you should listen to your daughter.
I think I
should. I will do better, but the top problem is that on the campaign it’s just
so hard.
Michelle
Cottle: So, now you were talking about the totality of your experiences.
Looking at the totality of the ticket, so to speak, who is on your short list
for running mate? What factors are you ——
Do you want to
be vice president? Is this what you’re asking me?
MC: You know, I
don’t even — I can’t imagine that job.
All right, let
me just say this. I think it’s a little bit premature. It will not be an old
white guy. [LAUGHTER] I think Joe [Biden] has had eight years as vice
president: probably enough. I believe in diversity. I believe and know that my
administration and my cabinet will look like America looks like. I’m not going
to tell you who it’s going to be. We haven’t considered that yet, but I think
it is long — the country is long overdue for the kind of diversity that we’re
going to bring to the White House.
MC: Now what
about your campaign staff? What percentage is women at this point?
I don’t know. I
would tell you that to the best of my knowledge — my campaign manager is out
there somewhere [GESTURES TO THE HALLWAY]— 40 percent of our campaign is
minority.As of May, the Sanders campaign staff was 71 percent female, according
to The Wall Street Journal. The staff is majority nonwhite; 47 percent of
members are white and nearly 10 percent are black. We have a whole lot of
African-Americans, and Latinos, and Asian-Americans. It’s a very diverse
campaign. I will tell you. Let me go through it right now: Campaign manager in
Iowa is a woman. Campaign manager in Nevada is a woman. Campaign manager in New
Hampshire’s not a woman. Campaign manager in South Carolina is African-American
guy. Campaign manager in California is a woman.
MC: Now, there
were allegations in the 2016 campaign of sexual harassment. What steps have you
taken so there’s not a ——
We’ve taken
radical steps. I was humiliated. I heard about it, and I read the four articles
that appeared in The New York Times on that issue. And it was personally
humiliating to me. And embarrassing that — and we met with some of the people.
It was disgusting, that some of the people on the staff. Various — you know we have
hundreds of people on the staff, and some acted in totally inappropriate ways.
What we did is we hired, we think, the best people in the country who are
familiar with this issue.
They made
recommendations. We implemented them. We instituted, what I believe was and may
well be today, the strongest protocol in terms of sexual harassment.Senator
Sanders released a 16-page document in May outlining his campaign’s new
guidelines for ending sexual harassment that included an independent hotline to
report harassment and a fixed pay scale. The Sanders campaign staff voted to
unionize in March. Which means that if anyone feels that they have been treated
incorrectly, improperly, inappropriately, there was an independent channel that
they go to. So, we have taken very strong action in response to what happened
in 2016.
MG: Senator,
why hasn’t your candidacy gained broad support among African-Americans?
Well, a couple
of reasons, but check that out. I think sometimes — without going through the
whole — what happened in 2016 is, we were running against a woman, who — she
and her husband were very popular in the African-American community. But even
in 2016, we won the support of African-Americans who were under the age of 40
and Latinos. And right now that is still the case. In fact, poll after poll has
us winning the support of people under 49.
We’re not doing
well with older people. I’ve got to work on that. But I don’t accept the fact
that we’re — I mean, I’d like to do better. But we are not. And Joe Biden is
doing well, and there are reasons for that. But I think behind Joe, we are in
second place within the African-American community. I suspect we’re winning
among younger African-Americans.Senator Sanders is a favorite among black
millennials, but by a small margin. Mr. Biden is leading him in support among
all black voters by nearly 20 percentage points.
KK: Why is
Biden doing so well?
And I should also
tell you that I just came back from South Carolina yesterday. We have more
African-Americans support in the State Legislature than any other candidate. We
had nine members of the State Legislature who are supporting us. Actively
supporting us. We have — I don’t know enough about other campaigns, but we have
a whole lot of people like Cornel West, Nina Turner, Danny Glover, many others.
Leading African-American voices that are out there campaigning very, very hard
for us. I think we will surprise people about how well we do in South Carolina,
for example.
MG: So, you’ve
declined to support reparations. What, if anything, should the federal
government do ——
Good.
MG: — to
address the condition —
Good.
MG: —
specifically of black Americans after centuries of discrimination, exclusion
and plunder, frankly?
Yes. You’re
right. It’s not that I have rejected reparations.While Senators Elizabeth
Warren and Cory Booker said they supported some form of reparations, Senator
Sanders has been typically contrarian on the issue — he said that “there are
better ways” to help black communities “than just writing out a check.” I am on
Cory Booker’s bill in the Senate, which looks at reparations. I’m a co-sponsor
of that. Strong co-sponsor of that. What I believe is, you’re absolutely right.
And that means I am sympathetic to what Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, was
talking about. I don’t know if you’re familiar with what Clyburn is talking
about. It’s called the 10-20-30 legislation and what it says is, the federal
government must substantially increase funding for distressed communities that
have long-term poverty rates. Often, not always, African-American communities.
And that means a significant increase in federal funding for housing, for
education, for health care, for infrastructure, for job training.
You’re
absolutely right. There is no argument. They’re all community, African-American
community. We don’t even have to go into all the horror that that community has
experienced, and that has got to be addressed and we intend to address it, in
an extremely bold way. That’s a promise I make to you.
MG: Thank you.
NF: You’ve
announced proposals to, I guess, essentially freeze deportations, to
decriminalize border crossings and to provide a pathway to citizenship.
Yes.
NF: But, you’ve
also said that guest workers and undocumented immigrants can lower wages for
low-skilled American workers. I was wondering if you still felt that way, and
what do you think —
No, that’s what
I said on the Lou Dobbs show 250 years ago, right?Senator Sanders made this
argument multiple times during his 2016 run, including in an interview with
Vox’s Ezra Klein and at a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event, where he argued
that lower wages are tied to an influx of immigrants. It gets repeated a little
bit. But look, I think if you look at the proposal that we have, and I speak as
the son of an immigrant. What we are going to do — you asked me what we do in
the first hundred days — I’ll tell you what we do on Day 1. What we do on day
one is end all of Trump’s racist immigration executive orders. We undo them.
And on Day 1, we restore legal status to the 1.8 million young people and their
parents eligible for the DACA program. O.K.?
No. 2, through
executive order we are going to totally change our attitude on the border.
Under my administration, federal agents will not be snatching babies from their
mothers. Will not be throwing children into cages. And No. 3, and I believe we
can do this, I can’t swear to you, because it is going to require bipartisan
support, but I think the American people do want comprehensive immigration
reform, and a path toward citizenship. And I will push that as strongly as I
can. And I think there is bipartisan support for that.
But in terms of
labor rights, I will tell you this, you may or may not know this, in — I don’t
know, 2008 maybe? Somewhere around there. I went to Immokalee, Fla. Does that
town mean anything to anybody? Immokalee, Fla.? Immokalee is a small town near
Naples, Fla. And it turns out to be the town where a whole lot of tomatoes are
grown that go to McDonald’s and Burger King to be used on their sandwiches. And
I stood with the workers, the undocumented workers, in Immokalee, to help them
get better working conditions and better wages. And we held a hearing — when
Ted Kennedy was alive, we held a hearing. And the result of that, is they got
better wages.
So, I think
you’re raising an issue, though, that we don’t talk about a whole lot when we
talk about immigration, and that is the exploitation of undocumented workers.
If you don’t have any documentation, I could hire you for five bucks an hour
and what recourse do you have? Not much. And that is an issue that our labor
law reform, by the way, does deal with.Senator Edward Kennedy died in 2009.
Read a full synopsis of the 2008 hearing, via the farm workers’ coalition,
here. Read about Mr. Sanders’s workplace proposals here.
Binyamin
Appelbaum: But you don’t think that that exploitation results in lower wages
for domestic workers?
Sure it does.
Right now, we have people who are being exploited. If you’re undocumented, and
you’re being paid five bucks an hour, why am I going to pay her $12 an hour?The
prevailing view of economists is that immigration increases economic growth, so
it is not tethered to lower wages or less employment for American workers.
BA: I’m
confused.
And that’s why
the labor law that I am proposing will make sure you pay that worker $15 an
hour, as a matter of fact.
BA: What you
said on the Lou Dobbs show was that that exploitation lowers wages, and you
just said that again.Senator Sanders’s appearance on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” wasn’t
exactly 250 years ago. It was 2007, when he said, “I don’t know why we need
millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work
for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they
are now.” So, I’m confused about what has changed about your position.
What did I just
say again?
BA: You said
that the exploitation of undocumented workers results in lower wages for
domestic workers.
Yeah, if you’re
being paid $5 — If you’re being paid $5 an hour, now of course it’s going to
lower wages. Why would I hire at a higher wage?
BA: But just a
minute ago you said that was no longer your position. Is it your position that
immigration, and exploitation ——
I didn’t say
“immigration.” I said that if you are paid, anybody is paid, exploited and
illegally paid low wages, of course that’s going to lower wage standards in
America.
BA: And that’s
what’s happening right now?
You said that.
I didn’t say that. I don’t know how big a deal it is, but if people are being
exploited by their employers, of course it lowers wages in America. Why do I —
If I can get you for cheap labor, why do I pay her a living wage? Do you deny
that? I mean, I don’t know. That’s ——
BA: I just
wanted to understand your position. Thank you.
Do you disagree
with that?
BA: I think
that there’s a lot of research suggesting that that’s not actually the case,
yes.Even George Borjas, the Harvard economist cited by the Trump administration
in efforts to argue that immigration drives down wages, has said there is no
economic justification for restricting skilled immigration.
That if I pay
you five bucks an hour, it doesn’t have an impact on her wages.
BA: That
immigration ——
I didn’t say
immigration.
BA: The
immigration under current circumstances, which is substantially under ——
Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh.
Hold on. You’re misstating me. All I am saying is that if for whatever reason,
I’m paying you $5 an hour, O.K.? You don’t think that’s going to lower the
wages that she gets?
BA: There’s a
lot of economic research suggesting that it does not.
Not that I have
seen.
BA: O.K.
I mean I think
that’s kind of common sense. It’s called a race to the bottom.
BA: Thank you.
NF: You’ve long
supported movements in Latin America to oppose American intervention and
oppressive regimes there. Why do you think it is that so many of the leftist
governments that have taken power in the last few years, despite the hopes that
many American leftists had that they would bring about change, have become
anti-democratic, corrupt and even brutal?
Well, for a
start, compared to what? What I have opposed my whole life is U.S.
interventionism and overthrowing governments. Even as mayor of Burlington,
Senator Sanders was outspoken in his support for leftist movements in Latin
America opposing United States intervention. He made an unusual trip to
Nicaragua in 1985, where he praised that country as being “determined not to be
a banana republic anymore” after years of foreign domination.All right. As you
are familiar with, the United States has a long history under the so-called
Monroe Doctrine of overthrowing governments. I don’t think that that’s right.
All right. I
think it was wrong to overthrow Salvador Allende in Chile, and it was wrong to
overthrow the Brazilian government. Wrong to overthrow the government in
Dominican Republic, wrong to overthrow the Grenadian government. You know, it’s
just Big Brother thinking they have the right to intervene, whatever they
wanted in Latin America. Now, you raise an interesting question. First of all,
when we talk about recent governments — Lula [Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former
president of Brazil], who I talked to a couple of weeks ago — we can argue it.
Now I’m not telling you I’m the world’s greatest expert, but I suspect the case
against them was an illegitimate case.
NF: Was
legitimate or ——
Was
illegitimate. All right. I think he was jailed. He was — before the election in
which [Jair] Bolsonaro won, Lula, as I recall, was the most popular politician
in Brazil. And he had a pretty good record.A 2010 survey found that President
da Silva’s administration was supported by 80 percent of Brazilians. He was the
country’s first working-class president. He faced and was convicted of criminal
charges, including corruption and money laundering. And there was a charge,
which I suspect was trumped up to get him out of the election, which resulted
in an extreme right-wing Trump ally winning.
In terms of Evo
Morales [of Bolivia], his record was a pretty good record. He went a long way
to limit or to cut back on extreme poverty in a very poor country. Give a voice
to the indigenous people of that country. Should he have run for another term
although they made it legal? Probably not. But you know, within the context of
what?The editorial board has written that in attempting to destroy term limits
and otherwise abusing power, Mr. Morales shed his legitimacy as a leader. In
Mexico where you have drug cartels, massive amounts of corruption, in terms of
other countries. So I’m not quite sure I accept the basic premises. Lula, I
think, did a good job in Brazil. I think Morales probably should not have run
again, but his record is not a bad record.
NF: Nicaragua?
[Daniel] Ortega
is a good exception to the rule, who came to power way back when in the ’80s
and has since become a dictator, and I think that’s unfortunate. But don’t only
look to leftist governments.The editorial board has frequently written with
concern about the rise of Mr. Bolsonaro and other populists around the world.
Our friend Mr. Bolsonaro in Brazil is now destroying the entire lungs of the
world, if you like, and attacking gays. So you know, it’s not just left-wing
governments that have misbehaved, I think, in Latin America.
KK: I assume
that Venezuela would be one of the exceptions on that list as well?
Yep. Yep.In
February, Senator Sanders warned against intervention in Venezuela. He told
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “It’s fair to say the last election was undemocratic, but
there are still democratic operations taking place in that country.”
KK: Can I ask
you a question about a different part of the world? Are you comfortable with
the United States having nuclear weapons in Turkey today?In October, President
Trump appeared to acknowledge that the United States has nuclear weapons in
southern Turkey, breaking with longstanding government protocol not to comment
on where the country has such weapons stationed. Mr. Trump’s comments came
after concerns over Turkey’s invasion of Syria. Obviously, Mr. Sanders is also
breaking that protocol here, too.
I’m not
comfortable about nuclear — no, I’m not. And I’m not comfortable about nuclear
weapons, in general. I would say it’s one of the miracles — thank God. You
know, back in 1945 after Hiroshima, I think, Nagasaki, I think people would not
have believed that we would have gone this long without a nuclear war. Now
what, we have 11 countries, 12 countries around the world with nuclear weapons?
I mean, I think to answer your question, no. I think we have got to, once
again, be very vigorous in trying to put forward nuclear bans and do everything
we can to get those weapons out of the hands of countries all over the world.
KK: Are you
specifically concerned about [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan having ——
Sure I am.
KK: control
over or access to American ——
I’m not overly
delighted to have Pakistan have nuclear weapons as well. You know? It’s a
dangerous situation and I, you know, and God knows.
KK: Is Turkey
still an American ally in your eyes?
Well, I am not
impressed, you know, by Trump’s policy with Turkey where he gets a phone call
from Erdogan and the next day announces that we’re withdrawing U.S. troops. I
think he is a distant — I understand he’s a member of NATO, but not one of our
strongest allies.
Alex Kingsbury:
Speaking of withdrawing troops, the Trump administration appears to be
negotiating again with the Taliban ——
Is that what
Mr. Trump said the other day?
AK: — to end
the war in Afghanistan —
And you take
that on face value, right?
AK: The peace
treaty that they appear to be moving toward would sort of cast the
democratically elected Afghan government to its fate. Is that an appropriate
way to end the war in Afghanistan? Would you have a different strategy?
Two things, and
I say this not to be facetious. I am asked every day about what I think about
what Trump said and I don’t believe him. I mean, you mentioned that he is
negotiating with the Taliban. I think that was a surprise to the Taliban, and
it was a surprise to his advisers. So I don’t necessarily believe him. I think
he’s a pathological liar and I hold in deep doubt virtually anything he says.
What I do believe — as somebody who vigorously opposed the war in Iraq, opposed
to the first Gulf war, when I was a young man opposed the Vietnam War, doing
everything I can to get the U.S. out of Yemen right now — is I want to see an
end to endless wars.Senator Sanders laid out his foreign policy vision and
commitment to ending “endless wars” in a June article in the journal Foreign
Affairs. The article did not include much detail on the particulars of the
senator’s plans, while touching on climate change, terrorism, immigration and
key alliances. But it’s not done the way Trump does it, by tweets and by phone
calls announcing a policy that nobody in his administration is even aware of.
It has to be thought out.
AK: Mr. Trump
has pardoned several men accused or convicted of war crimes. And I’m curious
what sort of criteria you would ——
That was an
outrage.
AK: — bring to
the pardoning process.
I think many of
the military leaders, past and present, were disgusted by that action. The
United States, as a nation, we have historically held certain values: that we
don’t torture, we don’t humiliate. We fight wars when necessary, but we have a
standard of conduct. And when Trump pardons people who’ve been convicted of
crimes, he sends a message to the whole U.S. military and to the world, so that
our troops get captured in a war, God forbid, and they’re going to be tortured.
And our enemies say, “Hey, what’s the problem? It’s exactly what you do. You
set the standard. If you could do it, we can do it.”
So we’ve got to
be a little bit better than that. And I support those people in the military
who themselves understand that that is not what this country should be about.
AK: What
criteria would you look at if you were considering pardoning someone?
Well, I think
in terms of war crimes, in terms of behavior of troops, there are standards
that we have held for a long time, which are I would support. I mean it’s not
for me to be judging every case, that we have a process that does that. But
there are international standards and standards that this country has upheld
and when there are individuals in the military who violate those standards,
they should be punished, not pardoned.
AK: The
president shares a lot of your concerns about our economic relationship with
China and the other ——
No, the
president does not, not quite. I mean, I know his rhetoric. I look at the world
very differently than Mr. Trump does, but go ahead.
AK: [LAUGHS]
I’m wondering if you could explain how your approach to dealing with China
would be different from the president and how it would elicit better outcomes.
China is one of
the most powerful and important countries in the world, and it’s a country that
we have got to work with and live with. It is a country I voted against permanent
normal trade relations with China, which was the right vote because between
Nafta and P.N.T.R. [permanent normal trade relations] with China, this country
has lost some four million decent paying jobs.
So I’ll get to
your question, but in terms of trade, I believe in trade. But it’s got to be
based on principles that are fair, not unfettered free trade. So if companies
want to shut down in America to find cheap labor in China or Vietnam, I’m
against that and that’s how I have voted.
But in terms of
dealing with China, you have a country which is one of the important countries
in the world. I think we want to have a positive relationship with them, but it
has to be based on mutual respect and the rule of law. If China infringes on
intellectual property rights, that has to be dealt with. If China puts a
million Muslims into concentration camps, call it what you may, that has got to
be dealt with. If China is doing what it is doing in Hong Kong, we have got to
be on the support — on the side of the protesters in Hong Kong who are fighting
for democracy.
So look, we’re
not going to agree with China on everything. They are an increasingly
authoritarian country and that concerns me. Our standards have got to be
democracy and human rights, and I think we make that clear to the whole world.
But to the degree that we can work with China, I want to see us work with
China. I don’t want to see another Cold War.
James Dao: On
Hong Kong, what would you see as a good outcome to these protests there?
I would see the
people of Hong Kong having more local control into their future. I think what
they are standing up and saying they do not want to be dominated by China. They
want to have political freedom and more independence from the mainland. And I
support that. And I — you know, it’s disappointing that we have a president who
has not spoken out on that issue.
KK: Do think
President Xi [Jinping] is a dictator?
Yeah, I do. I
mean, look, China is — A, I’m not the world’s greatest authority on China, and
B, it is a long and complicated issue to deal with a country the size of China.
So what can we say about China? We can say about China, to their credit, that
they have come a very long way. It wasn’t so many decades ago that there was
mass starvation in China. All right?When Senator Sanders said, this summer,
that China has done more to address extreme poverty “than any country in the
history of civilization,” he prompted outrage from some who pointed to the
abuses of the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward as evidence of the
costs of China’s economic advances. There is not mass starvation today and
people have got — the government has got to take credit for the fact that there
is now a middle class in China. No one denies that more people in China have a
higher standard of living than use to be the case. All right? That’s the
reality.
On the other
hand, China is a dictatorship. It does not tolerate democracy, i.e., what
they’re doing in Hong Kong. They do not tolerate independent trade unions and
the Communist Party rules with a pretty iron fist. So, and by the way, in
recent years, Xi has made the situation even worse. So, I mean, I’ll give, you
give people credit where it is due. But you have to maintain values of
democracy and human rights and certainly that does not exist in China.
Jesse Wegman:
Senator, I’d like to ask you a few questions about guns and the Supreme Court.
First on guns, to focus on a few policies, let’s look at universal background
checks. You know, obviously one of the most, you talked about policies that are
supported by large numbers of American people.
Right.
JW: This is one
of the most, one of the most popular policies out there, even among gun owners.
You voted against the Brady Bill about a quarter of a century ago, which
included background checks.Senator Sanders has had a mixed record on gun
control, receiving scores from the National Rifle Association’s Political
Victory Fund that range from C-minus to F in terms of his support for gun
issues. In 1993, Mr. Sanders fulfilled a campaign promise with his vote against
the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established waiting periods
and a federal background check system for people buying guns from licensed
dealers. You now back background checks. What has changed?
Well, a couple
of things have changed. When I voted — mostly the world has changed. O.K. How
many years ago are we talking about when I voted against this?
JW: Twenty-six.
O.K., so the
world has changed a little bit. The Sanders campaign has said his opposition to
the Brady Bill in 1993 stemmed from its inclusion of an interim five-day national
waiting period while an instant background check system was being installed;
Mr. Sanders viewed the waiting period as federal overreach and felt he was
voting in accordance with the wishes of his constituents. Mr. Sanders has also
frequently said that his anti-assault weapon stance and the N.R.A.’s
endorsement of his opponents may have cost him the 1988 election. I come from a
state that until two years ago had no gun control at all. Zero. O.K. People of
Vermont have changed, and I certainly have changed on that issue. There is now
in Vermont, and all over this country, disgust at the level of mass shootings
and gun violence in general. And I will have an administration that will have a
gun policy second to none. O.K., and I’ll tell you one of the things and one of
the advantages of being the candidate and going around the country, you see
things that other people don’t see. In just two instances, where we don’t talk
about it enough. We talk about the horror that we saw in El Paso, with Dayton,
with Sandy Hook or wherever.
But we don’t
talk about the fact that my grandchildren in school in New Hampshire undergo
drills to keep them safe from some lunatic walking into a school. And what does
that do to the children? I was in Iowa a number of months ago, I’ll never
forget this, a guy about 6-foot-2, a high school kid, thought he was a football
player, may well have been a football player, big kid. And he said, “I’ve got
to tell you, Senator, that the kids at my school are scared. Scared to go to
school.” And then I talked to another mother who said, “What do I say to my
daughter who wanted one of those bulletproof backpacks?” That’s what her
daughter wanted for Christmas or something.
So you’ve got a
traumatized generation of kids and you know, as Barack Obama said, all that we
can do on this issue is the best that we can do. No one can guarantee when
there are hundreds of millions of guns floating all over this country that
somebody today will not do something terrible. And I’d lie to you if I said
that I can, but we have to do the best that we can. And that includes
background checks. It includes ending the gun show loophole. It includes ending
the so called straw-man provision, which allows you to legally buy guns and
sell it to criminals.
For 30 years, you
want to talk about my record going back, then talk about also — I lost an
election, perhaps when I ran for Congress, because I supported a ban on assault
weapons, way back when in 1988. I lost that election. That was not a popular
position. So all I can tell you is I share with 98 percent of the American
people the horror in what we’re seeing and we got to do everything we can to
make sure that guns do not fall into the hands of people who should not have
them.
JW: Well, let’s
talk also about where the best place for gun policy to be made is. You’ve
generally supported a state-based regime in which different states make laws,
gun laws based on the needs of those states —
Not recently, I
have not. I think if you look at my policy, it’s a strong federal government
acting.Senator Sanders, who comes from gun-friendly Vermont, weathered a steady
stream of criticism from the left for his position on guns in 2016. He’s made a
concerted effort to ensure that doesn’t repeat in 2020 by reiterating the need
for background checks, and pointing to his own history of support for a ban on
assault weapons. He had a particularly confounding exchange with MSNBC’s Rachel
Maddow at the June Democratic debate: She asked him about a statement he gave
to a Burlington newspaper in 2013 that regarding guns, “everything being equal,
states should make those decisions.” Senator Sanders called the statement “a
mischaracterization” of his thinking, to which Ms. Maddow responded, “It’s a
quote of you.”
JW: I was going
to ask about your support of a federal red-flag law in particular and why you
felt that was better accomplished at the federal level than the state level?At
least 17 states and the District of Columbia have red-flag laws on the books,
many of them passed after the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in 2018. Data
from older red-flag laws, including Connecticut’s, which was passed in 1999,
shows that they are often used for suicide prevention. At a federal level, the
law would likely be a grant program to assist states in passing their own laws.
I think we have
— look, you know, as the former mayor I love governments being innovative. I
really do, but I think when you have a crisis, it is appropriate to stand up
and do, in this case, what the American people want. And as you prefaced your
remarks with, these are not radical ideas anymore. You know, 10 years ago they
may have been, but you got gun owners, non-gun owners, you got urban people,
you got rural people who understand that the status quo cannot continue. So red
flag is one thing, but there are many, many other provisions. I’ve ticked off
some, but we have got to be aggressive and do I think what the American people
wants and not what the N.R.A. wants. And you know what is the sad — what the
sad story is, it is the N.R.A. that has intimidated Trump and Mitch McConnell
and all of these guys. I think everybody knows that. That’s not why — that’s
why we’re not going forward.
JW: Are there
gun policies that you would leave in the hands of the states?
I don’t know. I
mean, I can’t give you a definitive answer, depending, I suppose, on the
policy.
JW: And I just
want to ask you about the Supreme Court. Can you — I’m going to ask you a
question and have you address it in two different scenarios. I’m curious who
would be on your short list for a nominees to the court, both under a
Democratic-led Senate and under a Republican Senate?
Well, the
promises that I’ve made so far is that I will never appoint anybody who was not
100 percent Roe v. Wade. I believe women have the right to control their
bodies, not the government. And in general, I think, especially in recent
years, the Supreme Court, despite what they may say — what [Chief] Justice
[John] Roberts and others may say — they are a very political group of people
and too often they are beholden to right-wing special interests and corporate
interests. So the person that I would appoint would not only be 100 percent Roe
v. Wade, would be somebody who understands plight of the working class in this
country, who is prepared to stand up to the power of corporate interests.
JW: Can you
give us any names?
No.
JW: How would
you get anyone with that sort of an ideology past a Republican-led Congress?The
Democratic contenders have given little response to the question of how their
plans will survive in Mr. McConnell’s Senate, leading one source close to him
to declare Mr. McConnell himself the winner of the first Democratic debate.
Well, again,
that’s the same question we started off the discussion with.
JW: That’s an
important question.
Well, it is an
important question and the answer is you fight for that person. And you make
the case to the American people — not that I’ve appointed that person, not just
because I like him or her, but these are the values that that person has and
why we need that person on the Supreme Court.Popular support has, of course, no
direct influence on Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court. When Mr. Obama
nominated the centrist judge Merrick Garland to the court in 2016, 52 percent of
Americans supported his confirmation but the Senate stonewalled. And then I
think you put it into a broad context and I will do, look again, what I think
makes this discussion a little bit different is I tell you unabashedly whether
you like it or not. I suspect many of you do not. I will be a different
president. So don’t look at me within the context of history.
What I will do
is tell the American people that we have by a 5-to-4 vote, this Supreme Court,
or most of those members, gave us Citizens United. The American people think
it’s a good idea that billionaires can buy elections? You know what, they
don’t. The Janus decision. Wiping out the Voting Rights Act. So the day after
you’ve got racist governors engaged in voter suppression. All right? So you’ve
got to put it in a context. Now, Roberts: “Oh, we’re not political. We don’t
know where the Democrats, where Republicans. We’re not liberals, conservative —
we just interpret the constitution.” You know what? I don’t believe it. And I
will take that case to the American people.
JW: Senator,
I’m with you. You know, Donald Trump came out four years ago with a list of 18
or 20 names.Mr. Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees, released in
May 2016 when he was the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was
criticized because it had only white people and just three women among 11
names. In September 2016 he released a more diverse list. A lot of people
believe that that was pretty important in helping push him over the top and
certain places. Do you not see the value in ——
Maybe. I mean,
it’s something, you know — it’s the same thing, who’s my vice president? Got to
kind of win the nomination first. I’m kind of struggling to do that. And I want
to do that. But you know, it’s not a bad idea. It’s a reasonable idea. My wife
agrees with you. Yeah. I’ll take that into consideration. Nothing wrong with
that. As to who I’ll potential nominees for the Supreme Court would be. Yep.
All right. So if you see that in The New York Times, you know where it came
from.
LK: Senator, I
have a related question for you. Speaking of the Supreme Court, I’m wondering
how closely you’re following the big abortion case that the court has agreed to
take up in March and what your biggest concern is about how that case could be
decided?
Well, I think
everybody who is pro-choice is worried that there is now a 5-to-4, with [Brett]
Kavanaugh, majority who could eviscerate Roe v. Wade.
LK: Do you
think that it’s a likely outcome for this case or —
I hope to God
it is not. I mean, I can’t, I’m not going to speculate, but I think there’s a
reasonable chance that that could happen.The abortion case focuses on a
challenge to a Louisiana law that critics say would leave the state with just
one doctor authorized to provide abortions. Reproductive-rights advocates worry
that the court’s ruling in this case, June Medical Services v. Gee, will
overturn the 2016 decision Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt and allow states
to restrict abortion through regulation. It was unclear, in this exchange,
whether Mr. Sanders knew which case was being discussed.
LK: If
something like that were to happen, what would you do executively to protect
reproductive rights?
Everything that
we possibly could. I have been 100 — I think my record is 100 percent
throughout a long lifetime of politics believing that a woman’s right to choose
is a constitutional right of privacy.Senator Sanders does have a long record of
support for reproductive rights, including casting an early vote against the
Hyde Amendment, which blocked Medicaid funding for abortions and which his
rival Joe Biden has supported in the past. We will move to codify — as
president I would move to codify Roe v. Wade. This is a tough — you know what I
said — and it’s a tough issue. I would significantly increase funding for
Planned Parenthood. I’d do everything humanly possible to — you know, and the
difficulty here, the painful reality is that for women who have money, they
will be able to get an abortion. If you don’t have money, you may not be able
to. And that is so wrong. So all that I can tell you, it’s not from the top of
my head, I will do everything I can, in every way that I can. Something I believe
very strongly, it is women, not the government, who have a right to control
their own bodies.
KK: I hope you
don’t mind if I ask you a couple of more personal questions. Can you give us an
example of one person who’s broken your heart?
[AFTER A LONG
PAUSE] What, on a personal level?
KK: Yeah.
No. I won’t.
Even candidates for president of the United States have a limited amount of
privacy.“It was really interesting the way he didn’t answer that question,” one
board member said afterward in deliberations. “It was such a human response,
and I think an older candidate will have the courage to do that, but it’ll be
interesting to see if other candidates, particularly younger, ones feel like
they’re forced to answer”
KK: For
millions of Americans, the church and religion are center of their communities.
Do you believe in God? Who are your spiritual advisers?
I am Jewish. I
am proud to be Jewish. I was bar mitzvahed from the Kings Highway Jewish
Center, a long time ago. I am not actively involved in organized
religion.Senator Sanders is religiously an anomaly among the candidates, for
several reasons — if elected, he would be the first Jewish president, and also
one of few who have openly discussed a disconnect from organized religion. He
attended Hebrew school as a boy and spent time in Israel on a kibbutz, but has
said he does not have a regular religious practice. I believe in God. I believe
in the universality of people. That what happens to you impacts me. And I
certainly believe in the constitutional right of freedom of religion. And I
will strongly defend that. And by the way, what that means is that we will end
the Muslim ban in this country imposed by Donald Trump, because I think people
in this country have the right to freely enjoy their religions and participate
in religious life that interests them.
KK: Is there
anyone that you turn to, to discuss faith or questions in spirituality?
My wife was
raised as a Catholic, holds some pretty strong feelings.
KK: Do you
think that faith or spirituality will play any role in the leadership that you
bring to the country?
Well, it’s a
bigger — I mean, what do we mean by faith? You know, we have some right-wing
guys who think that God has told them that Muslims shouldn’t come into this
country or that their religion says that women can’t have access to
reproduction — reproductive rights, and they’re not going to fund that or
they’re not going to serve a gay couple a wedding cake. Right? That’s a
religious right, you know, so it’s a big, it’s a big question.
But I believe,
you know, I was just actually in a church in South Carolina on Sunday, and what
I said is that if you look at the Bible, what is the major provision that
Christ and religious leaders all over the world talked about? Not that
complicated. Do unto others as you would like them to do to you. All right? I
believe that. And in many respects, that’s exactly what our campaign is based
on. It is based on, on justice. I believe in justice. That is the core of what
our campaign is about.
If I was
sleeping out on the street tonight as 500,000 Americans are, I would like you
to do something about it. O.K.? And why we’re making nine bucks an hour, and I
just talked to a woman in South Carolina who makes $7.25 cents an hour. You
know what? I’d like you to do something about it. I would like other people to
treat me as I would treat them. And that is kind of what our campaign is about.
So when you ask me about a spiritual, my spiritual, my religious views, that is
what I believe. I believe that all human beings share a common humanity, no
matter the color of our skin or where we were born. I think we have common
dreams and aspirations for our kids.
And I believe
that very, very strongly and I detest — of all the things that I hate about
Trump, what I detest maybe most is, in an unprecedented way, certainly not like
George Bush at all, very conservative guy. What Trump is trying to do is
intentionally divide us up based on the color of our skin. This was the
champion of the birther movement. You’re familiar with that in New York? All
right. This is a guy who is demonizing the undocumented. This is the guy who
has imposed the Muslim ban. This is a guy who is at war against the transgender
community. He is trying to divide the American people up. I detest that because
I believe exactly the opposite. I believe we have a common humanity and that
we’ve got to come together around an agenda that works for all of us.Senator
Sanders made clear the link between his own religious identity and his policy
platform when he released a manifesto on fighting anti-Semitism in the
left-wing publication Jewish Currents.
Brent Staples:
I think it’s — how about the fact that Trump has touched a chord in 40 to 44
percent of the people? I mean, what about that issue is that Trump is a symptom
of a widespread problem. I mean, how do you address that? The problem exists
whether Trump is president or not is what I’m saying.
I wish I could
give you a great answer, brilliant answer to that. But this is what I will tell
you, because that’s, you’re right. What is the issue? How did Trump become
president? O.K. And I think it speaks to something that I talk about a lot and
that is the fact that the — not everybody, but tens and tens of millions of
Americans feel that the political establishment, Republican and Democrat, have
failed them. Maybe The New York Times has failed them, too.
BStaples: That
explains the appeal of racism?
Yeah. O.K. What
you have is that people are, in many cases in this country, working longer
hours for low wages. You are aware of the fact that in an unprecedented way
life expectancy has actually gone down in America because of diseases of
despair. People have lost hope and they are drinking. They’re doing drugs.
They’re committing suicide. O.K. They are worried about their kids. I have been
to southern West Virginia where the level of hopelessness is very, very high.
And when that condition arises, whether it was the 1930s in Germany, then
people are susceptible to the blame game.In August, Senator Sanders said he is
prepared to “go to war with nationalism and racism” and cited his family
history, of relatives “wiped out by Hitler and his white nationalism.”
To say that it
is the undocumented people in this country who are the cause of all of our
problems, and if we just throw 10 million people out of the country, you’re
going to have a good job, and you’re going to have good health care, and you
have good education, that’s all we got to do. So all over the world, Trump
didn’t invent demagoguery. It’s an age-old weapon used by demagogues. And you
take a minority and you demonize that minority and you blame that minority,
whether it’s blacks, whether it’s Jews, whether it’s Latinos, whether it’s
Muslims, you name the group — gays? Gays are going to destroy education in
America, we all know, yeah. On and on it goes. And you take the despair and the
anger and the frustration that people are feeling and you say, “That’s the
cause of your problem.”
Now, I think,
you raised the question, let me take it a step further. You haven’t asked me, I
suppose it’s somewhere on your list, why I think I’m the strongest candidate to
beat Trump. Is that on your list of there someplace? Page 2, all right. And
that is that there is a hard-core support for Trump, which I’m not going to be
able to get through. You’re right. It is racist. It is sexist. I run into that.
It’s hard to believe the attitude toward women in some parts of the country.
You really would have a hard time to believe it. We’re back into the 18th
century in some these places. It is homophobic. It is anti-immigrant. Do I
think I’m going to win those people over? Nah, no way. But do I think we can
get a sliver? I can’t tell you how much, 3 percent, 5 percent, 8 percent, of
people who voted for Trump because he said, “I am a different type of
Republican. I’m not going to cut Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. I’m
going to have trade policies that work for workers. We’re not going to be
shutting down plants in America.”
Do I think we
can win some of those people? Yeah, I do. And I think we’re going to win
because we are going to run a campaign of energy and excitement, which speaks
to truths in people’s lives, which the political establishment does not often
talk about. Now, when I announced my candidacy in 2016, I was on page A19 of
The New York Times.When Senator Sanders announced his 2016 campaign, the news
appeared on A21. In 2019, it appeared on A1. You didn’t take me too seriously.
I don’t know how serious ——
KK: Not that
you were counting.
[LAUGHS] Not that
I was counting. You should be pleased at how much attention I pay to The New
York Times.
But after the
election we ended up winning 22 states, 13 million votes, and more young people
than Trump and [Hillary] Clinton combined. All right? We have a message that I
believe uniquely speaks to the American people. I think we can win some Trump
support. I think we can grow the voter turnout because we have a message.In a
polling analysis of how Senator Sanders might fare against President Trump,
FiveThirtyEight noted that his primary performance in states in the upper
Midwest, along with his performance with independents, indicate that he could
draw in some of the Obama voters who flipped to Mr. Trump. And I think a key to
this coming election, by the way, is the behavior, the political participation
of young people. I think that is key. It’s not talked about often enough.
Now, after I
lost in 2016, I didn’t go home and lick my wounds. We started a group called
Our Revolution. And the goal of Our Revolution, which is totally independent
from me, to be clear, was to engage people, primarily young people, in the
political process. Our Revolution, founded by Senator Sanders after his 2016
run, worked to support Democratic candidates in the midterms before mounting a
brief “Draft Bernie” effort ahead of his official campaign launch. In 2018,
Politico raised concerns about the organization’s structural “disarray” and
fund-raising dips, with the organization’s treasurer acknowledging it was going
through “growing pains.”Get them to run for school board and state legislature
and city council. And that organization and other organizations have had pretty
good luck. In 2018, the voter turnout for young people was much higher than it
had been four years previously in the midterm election. We got to do a lot
better. So if you have young people, who are generally speaking quite
progressive, vote at the same rate as older people vote, we will transform this
country, and without any doubt I will be the president of the United States.
KK: We have a
few questions along this line actually, yeah.
I knew I jumped
the gun on you there.
AH: Speaking of
young people, recently President Obama made remarks around cancel culture and
this idea ——
Around what?
AH: Cancel
culture. Cancel culture.
Cancel culture.
AH: Are you
aware of that phrase?
Help me out a
little bit. Give me a hint.
AH: So cancel
culture essentially is often attributed to younger people, millennials, and
this idea that if you put out a critique of a public figure and call for either
their resignation or for their cancellation, that sort of thing.
Oh, I see.
AH: And so
President Obama said that he considers that “not activism.”Mr. Obama set off a
lively debate in the fall when he made a rare public statement that “call-out
culture,” in which young people rush to “be as judgmental as possible about
other people,” is “not activism.” Where do you stand on this? Is that something
you’re concerned about in terms of the way it’s kind of energized a certain
segment of the mainstream?
I think you got
a Twitter world out there. And the critique has been made, which I think has truth
to it, that the Twitter world does not necessarily reflect what the American
people are or even where most Democrats are.Conversation about how much “the
Twitter world” reflects the views of the broader population has been prevalent
in the 2020 race. Data from the Hidden Tribes Project found that outspoken
Democratic-leaning voters on social media are outnumbered, about 2 to 1, by
Democrats who don’t typically post about their political views online and are
less educated, more moderate and more diverse. The appeal that I make to young
people is two-fold. First of all, the good news is, and it is very good news,
is that our younger generation today is the most progressive young generation,
I suspect, in the history of this country. It is anti-racist, anti-sexist,
anti-homophobic, anti-xenophobic, anti-religious bigotry. It is very, very,
very concerned about climate change. It has led the effort in terms of gun
safety legislation. And we’re seeing a lot of activity. I mean, you’re seeing
young people not only in this country, but all over the world, lead the effort
on climate change. And I hope we’ll talk about that issue of climate change.
So you’ve got a
great generation of young people out there. Problem is that many of them do not
vote or get actively involved in the political process. And the appeal that I
make in virtually every speech that I give is to say, it’s not good enough for
you to be here at a rally. What you’ve got to do is tell your friends who can’t
afford to go to college, “We’re going to leave school in $50,000 of debt. We’re
worried about climate change. We’re worried about racism. You know what? Don’t
moan and groan, you’ve got to get involved in the political process.”
So I suspect
the president is right. That’s not enough to send out an email or a tweet or
whatever it may be. It’s we need a level of political consciousness and
political participation in this country that we have never seen before. That’s
how we defeat Trump. But we also need that especially among the young people. And
the reason for the young people, it’s not just that they’re idealistic, because
everything being equal, unless we turn this around, young people are going to
be on a lower standard of living than their parents. That means they are
leaving school deeply in debt. The jobs they’re getting may not necessarily in
real dollars be equivalent to what their parents had. They can’t afford
housing. This is a generation that is struggling, and we have to address that.
And I think by participating in the political process, they can bring about
some change.
Charlie Warzel:
Senator, since we live in a Twitter world, I’d love to ask a couple of
lightning-round questions about your use of technology.
Oh, God!
CW: I know. I’m
the geek squad. Do you personally use any social media?
Yeah, I have.
Most of the stuff that comes out — let me answer — I’m sorry, it’s not going to
be in 12 characters. It’ll be a longer answer.
I am not a
geek, but I understood way back when the power of social media. And that is why
my Senate office, you could check it out, I can’t remember exactly, I think we
have more followers on my Senate office than probably almost all the Democratic
senators combined. And while I worry very much that Trump has 60 million
followers on Twitter, we, I think, have reached the 10 million level.Mr.
Sanders’s campaign account has more followers, 10 million, than that of any of
his primary rivals. A FiveThirtyEight analysis found that his following is also
especially loyal, second only to that of Marianne Williamson — meaning those
who follow him are more likely to do so exclusively, and not follow other
candidates. So I take it very seriously. Have I tweeted? I sure have.
CW: What about
you personally?
Yeah, I have,
absolutely, every now and then. Not so much lately, but when I had the time I
did. Yes, I did.
CW: Do you have
a Mitt Romney-esque sort of secondary accountSenator Mitt Romney used an
account under the pseudonym Pierre Delecto to “like” tweets critical of
President Trump, and occasionally to defend himself against online attacks.
that you ——
No.
CW: No lurker
accounts?
Nope.
[LW: According
to wikipedia, a “lurker” sets up an internet account for observation purposes,
and rarely contributes to the discussion.]
CW: What’s an
——
As a senator,
and as the candidate, I could use my own official place.
CW: Fair
enough, fair enough. What’s an app on your phone that you have that might
surprise people?
Nothing.
CW: Do you have
any apps on your phone?
I look at — No,
I was asked by your Instagram people when I walked in here. I read a lot,
including The New York Times and The Washington Post and The Guardian, The Wall
Street Journal, and some progressive publications. So I go to them in my own
way.
CW: I ask
because these products play massive roles in people’s lives, as well as the
devices. I mean, one issue that we’re all thinking about all the time is
security, especially as a candidate. I mean, do you have two-factor
authentication set up on your phone?
There is a
woman in my office whose name is Melissa who drives me crazy and gets angry at
me all the time. Again, we take that issue very seriously, and she works on my
phone and my iPad, my computer, as she does for the whole office. In June, The
Washington Post asked the 23 Democratic contenders whether they had taken basic
cybersecurity measures to prevent their campaigns from hacking; almost all
declined to say, with the exceptions of Mr. Biden, Kamala Harris and Pete
Buttigieg. Senator Sanders’s campaign said responding might make the campaign
vulnerable to hackers. In fact, I was briefed maybe a month ago by the F.B.I.
on the dangers there. So we take those ——
CW: Do you feel
like you have the same relationship to technology as most Americans of your
age, or do you feel that you’ve been sort of isolated by that ——
Given the fact
that I have more social media followers than maybe all of my opponents
combined, I guess we’re doing something right on that. What I have recognized
is the importance of it. I’ve recognize the importance of being able to
communicate directly with 10 million people every single day, which is what we
do. Not as much as Trump does, but we do it. I’m not going to sit here and tell
you that I am a geek, I’m not.
CW: Are you an
Amazon Prime member?
Pardon me?
CW: Are you an
Amazon Prime member?
No.
CW: No. I’m
curious: We’re seeing a lot of people, especially of a younger age, spending so
much time on their screens. Do you think smartphones are addictive? Do you
think that we have a problem?
I worry about
it. Yeah, I do. I’m not the psychologist here, and I know there’ve been a
number of studies on the issue, but I know that my grandchildren come over to
the house, my wife gets angry at them because they’re looking at their damn
machines rather than talking to anybody else. And I do worry about the
long-term implications. This is a fairly new development in human history, and
I don’t know what it’s going to mean to a generation that’s grown up on these
machines.
So yeah, I’m
old fashioned maybe, and I think that sometimes it’s a good idea to look people
in the eye and communicate face to face. It’s kind of what makes us human
beings. And I’ll tell you what I do worry about. I do worry about having to
communicate in short sentences. I was just told by my staff the other day, the
press releases, which I grew up on in politics, are now obsolete.Judging by its
website, the Sanders campaign has, in fact, put out very few news releases. Here,
though, Mr. Sanders appears troubled by Mr. Trump’s t governing-by-Twitter
approach. You don’t read them anymore because you get so many of them. The only
thing that you will respond to is a tweet, especially if it’s new. I don’t know
if that’s true or not, but I heard that just from my campaign staff yesterday.
We don’t send out any more press releases. It’s too long, too many paragraphs.
So I think that’s not a good thing.
CW: I want to
talk a little bit about big tech. You’ve pushed publicly on Amazon to raise the
minimum wage. You were successful in that. And then the company turned around,
and it cut monthly bonuses and stock awards for ——
Not as much as
people — I know that was the story the next day.In October 2018, Amazon
announced that it would raise pay for the majority of its blue-collar work
force. Senator Sanders shared a video of the announcement. But some workers
fumed as the company then said it would no longer give out new stock grants and
monthly bonuses. Read The Times’s coverage here.
CW: The
question, though, is given the size and scope of a company like Amazon, Google,
Facebook, how do you make sure that they’re not going to use loopholes if you
do try to rein in big tech to just sort of undercut you?
It is much
bigger than what they pay. In terms of Amazon — by the way, thank you for
raising it. You see we talk about — when I talk about being a different type of
president, we were able to bring one of the major companies in this country to
justice in a certain sense. They were paying their workers 10, 11 bucks an
hour, and we put enough pressure on them to get them to pay $15 an hour. And
the truth is, by the way, we talked to the — what you’re saying is not quite
accurate. At the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of people that work
at Amazon are better off today than they were before we got them to raise the
wage. We did the same at Disney. I had to go to California, Disneyland, where
you have people walking around as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. They’re being
paid 11 bucks an hour. But to answer your question, the issue is not just the
wages. The bigger issue, of course, is the concentration of power that Amazon
has on our economy, which is, I think, something that we should be deeply
concerned about.Last year, Senator Sanders introduced a bill named — not subtly
— Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop BEZOS), targeting large
companies like Amazon for underpaying workers. In 2019 he suggested that The
Washington Post’s coverage of his campaign was influenced by Jeff Bezos, owner
of the paper and of Amazon. This is a technique of the Trump administration as
well.
CW: How is your
plan for reining in big tech different than Senator Warren’s? It seems like
you’ve sort of said that you agree with a lot of that, but how are you going to
differentiate yourself on that?
Look, all I can
tell you is that, and I don’t have the numbers in my head right now, but Amazon
— what do they control? Fifty percent of the internet economy. Is that what it
is?Amazon had net sales of more than $232 billion in 2018. While researchers
predicted that Amazon would capture 49 percent of United States online sales in
2018, more recent reports have put that number closer to 38 percent.
MG: That’s
about right.
CW: Well, it
depends what you’re looking at. Through Amazon Web Services, you have a large
amount of internet companies route their traffic to them. I mean, it’s massive.
You have
Facebook and Twitter, Google, enormous amount of the advertising that is done
online. These are very, very serious problems. And I think one of the things
where as a nation — and this is tough stuff. I’ll be the first to admit it, but
we have been derelict in that we have antitrust legislation that has not been
enforced by Republican or Democratic administrations, and I intend to do that.
And it is not just the big tech companies. It is Wall Street, where you have
six companies that have assets equivalent to half of the G.D.P. in this
country, and many of them are bigger today than they were before we bailed them
out. It is agribusiness where you’re seeing massive mergers to make it very
difficult for family farmers to survive. So we’re looking at an economy where
in sector after sector — and media — where you have a small number of media
conglomerates, and I think we have to take a look at antitrust legislation to
bring more competition to the market.
BA: Senator,
the federal government currently applies a fairly simple standard in antitrust
cases. If it’s good for consumers, it’s good. If it’s bad for consumers, it’s
bad. You seem to be suggesting that’s not broad enough. How specifically would
you define a new antitrust standard? What should be the measure for deciding
that a corporation is causing harm?
When you have
six financial institutions in this country having assets of over $10 trillion,
when we were forced to bail them out because their illegal behavior nearly
destroyed the economy in 2008, I think we should break them up. When you have
Amazon controlling 50 percent, or whatever it is, of online business, yeah, I
think we should be breaking them up. So I can’t give you a formula here. I’m
not sitting around the table with antitrust lawyers.
But I think
right now we have a very serious problem in terms of concentration of ownership
in industry after industry, not just big tech, but in many other industries as
well. So if you’re telling me that if there’s one company out there or two
companies that are providing low prices to consumers that that’s good enough, I
don’t accept that. I truly do not accept that.
BA: But this
sounds like “I know it when I see it.”“I know it when I see it” was first
memorably used by Justice Potter Stewart in reference to pornography in the
1964 Supreme Court case Jacobellis v. Ohio.
No. It sounds
like small businesses are not going to be able to compete. It sounds like low
prices are not the only criteria for what we want in a society. You may be
producing products at a low price and destroying the environment. You could
make an argument that the fossil fuel industry — you fill up your gas tank,
prices have been fairly stable in recent years, pretty good deal, right? Got a
good fossil fuel industry. Oh, there’s a slight problem, they’re destroying the
planet. Walmart is — go into Walmart, I guess you can get prices that are pretty
reasonable, but they’re paying their workers starvation wages, and as taxpayers
we are bailing them out because workers have to go on Medicaid and food stamps
that I have to pay for and you have to pay for. That’s owned by the wealthiest
family in the country. So no, the criteria for me is not just low wages by any
means. You got to look at the broad impact of what that concentration of
ownership means for the industry as well.
BA: Senator,
for many Americans, large public housing projects are sort of the emblem of the
failure of government to provide services. People think of them as terrible
places.The editorial board has written on the derelict state of many public
housing projects, especially in New York; a federal monitor has reported
widespread problems in city projects including rats, cockroaches and lead
paint. The board has also criticized the Trump administration’s vague plans on
tackling the housing crisis. You’ve suggested that new public housing
construction would be part of your approach to increasing affordable housing.
Yes.
BA: Why would
it work better this time around?
Well, we’re not
going to build these huge units that we’ve seen in Chicago where you’re
segregating poor people by income and race. That public housing has got to be
decentralized. But let me just be clear here, one of the issues that I learned
— you know, when you run around the country, you actually learn something. And
there is a major, major, major housing crisis in this country. That’s the fact.
And it is not
just “affordable housing” of which there is a crisis, because 18 million people
are paying half of their income for housing. It is not just gentrification,
which is driving housing costs up, which we have to deal with. It is the fact
that you got a half a million people tonight who are going to be sleeping out
on the street or in emergency shelters. You know why? Because we have not built
low-income housing. That’s why. That’s the simple truth. So do you want to
build segregated housing? No. Do you want to build low-income housing so that
every American, regardless of the income of the family has a place to live in
safety? You damn well do. I do.Senator Sanders’s Housing for All plan would
impose a national cap on annual rent increases, which some argue would reduce
incentives for developers to provide new housing.
KK: But the
United States has had public housing for decades, most of which has fallen into
disrepair. How would your plan be different? How would you ——
Well, among
other things, why has it fallen into disrepair? Because nobody was putting in
money. Here in your city, I talked to [Mayor Bill] de Blasio, I think, what is
it? Some huge amount of money, $15 billion in backlog.
MG: Seventeen
billion.
Seventeen?
Who’s counting?
MG: I’m
counting. [LAUGHTER]
Good,
somebody’s counting. All right. Why is that? Because you build a housing and then
we do not maintain the housing. Now I introduced, by the way, just a month ago
or so, with one of my favorite members of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
legislation just to deal with this. And it’s not just building new affordable
and low-income housing, it is to repair that housing, and not only make it
livable.
I’ve been
around with members of the City Council here to projects where elevators are
broken, old people can’t leave their house, rats, vermin are in the house.
We’ve got to repair those homes. But when we repair them, we also want to make
them energy-efficient. We also want to provide sustainable energy to them. We
also want to create a system where the tenants have more impact over the
decision-making than they currently have.
So look, we
have a major housing crisis. It is a crisis that impacts low-income people
severely. Everybody in this room and every American should be humiliated that
we have a half a million people sleeping out on the street. That is a failure
of public policy. And if somebody doesn’t have any money, I don’t know how you
give them housing unless it is heavily subsidized housing. You’ve got a better
idea? I’d love to hear it.
But if somebody
is living on $10,000 a year, or $15,000 a year, they ain’t going to pay for
affordable housing. It has to be built, and I intend to build that housing. We
have a housing program which would build 10 million units of housing in this
country, which would put a hell of a lot of people to work. When I talk about a
crumbling infrastructure, I am talking about the housing crisis in America and
the need to rebuild it.
KK: We’re
running out of time, and I want to get to climate.
Good.
John Broder:
Let’s talk about climate for a minute. I think we all agree in here, in this
room, that it’s a crisis. It’s both a chronic crisis and an acute crisis, and
you see by the growing numbers of very expensive natural disasters. The Green
New Deal sets long-term goals, but what would you do in the short term? What
would be the first priority? What policy would you establish right away to
begin to cut emissions?
I’m not
comfortable answering the first thing as opposed to the second thing. Let me
just tell you. This is what I say in every speech that I give. I was
criticized, not that I read The New York Times and get sensitive to criticism,
but you had an article, I don’t know if you saw it, that Bernie Sanders’s idea
is supported by people, but not the experts, and half of your experts ended up
working for the fossil fuel industry. I know that you don’t write those
articles.The Times’s news gathering operation and Opinion pages have completely
separate missions. In November, a Times reporter, Lisa Friedman, spoke to
Sanders supporters and climate experts about Senator Sanders’s $16 trillion
climate change plan. Experts including the Princeton professor Jesse Jenkins
and Paul Hawken, author of “Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed
to Reverse Global Warming,” criticized the proposal’s political viability and
rejection of nuclear energy. Read the article here. Look, the first thing that
we have to recognize, and I’m reading a couple of books right now on this
issue, is this is a major, major, major crisis. And what the scientists are now
telling us is they underestimated the severity and the degree to which climate
change is ravaging this world. And if you’re looking at a four degree increase
centigrade in degrees in temperature by the end of the century, where we’re on
track to doing it, you’re not looking at the world that you know today. You’re
looking at major cities in this country and all over the world. You know all
that stuff.
JB: Right, so
what do we do?
You do
everything humanly possible. That’s what you do. You do it and you understand
that climate change is the equivalent of a major attack. If we were attacked by
a country today, the president would say we’re in a state of war. Well, we are
in a state of war against climate change. And instead of denying the reality
like Trump does or making it worse by encouraging more fossil fuel, I will lead
the world. Because what makes the problem more complicated, it’s not just an
American issue, is it? It’s an issue of China and India, Brazil, and we have
got to lead the world to radically transform our energy system.
So what I say,
to answer your question, the most fundamental thing that we do is say to the
fossil fuel industry, “Sorry, your short-term profits are not more important
than the future of this planet. We’re going to phase you out as quickly as we
possibly can.” That means massive investments in wind, solar, energy
efficiency, transportation. It means leading the world and helping those
countries move in ——
John Broder:
Would you rejoin the Paris accord?
Yeah, that’s
nickel and dime. Let me just say this, would I rejoin the Paris agreement?
Yeah. So what? That doesn’t mean anything. You got to go far, far, far beyond
where the Paris agreement was. We are talking about the likelihood that your
grandchildren or children may be living in an increasingly unhealthy and
dangerous world, O.K.?
Paris agreement
is fine. That doesn’t mean anything. The world has got to understand that we
need bold and aggressive action now if we’re going to save this planet. That’s
what I believe. And it’s not what I believe, this is what the scientific
community is telling us. And by the way, I’ve been talking about this issue,
not to the degree — I’m reading the science, and they’re telling me that they
underestimated the problem.
Check my
record, and I was there before a lot of other people were there. I was there
demanding that the television stations start talking about climate change,
meeting with the presidents of the networks, when they weren’t, or arguing that
we weren’t sure about the reality of climate change. This is a severe crisis,
and we have got to act in as aggressive a way as humanly possible.
MC: So now
politics is about priorities. Sounds like this would be ——
This is a major
priority. How could it not be a priority?
MC: — if not
your signature issue, at least one of the ones.
I reject the
signature issue. I mean, I believe that members of Congress and the American
people can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. Saving the planet, yeah,
I guess that’s a signature issue.
MC: I’ve seen
no evidence of that, that they can chew gum and walk at the same.
Well, I’m
asking you to look — look, I’m not going to make you false promises. What I am
saying here is I intend to do things differently than has been done in the
past. And in terms of climate change, there is no choice. I was criticized by
everybody in the world. I came up with a $16 trillion program, and your writer
here said, “Oh, the experts don’t agree with Bernie.” You tell me the
alternative. What’s the alternative to spending as much as humanly possible to
save the planet?The bulk of Ms. Friedman’s reporting on criticism of the Green
New Deal did not, in fact, focus on its cost. You got a better idea than I do?
So we work with the scientific community. We work with the engineers. I don’t
have all the answers, but all I am telling you, you tell me, what is a higher
priority than saving the planet?
MC: Well,
that’s what I’m asking is that going to be your highest priority?
Right, but it’s
not my only major priority.
MC: Well, no,
but ——
JW: Senator,
working with the scientific communities is one thing ——
Working with?
JW: Working
with the scientific community is one thing, working with the Senate is another.
Assuming that you were elected president and the Democrats took leadership of the
Senate, they’re going to have at best 51 seats. Do you support ending the
filibuster in order to pass your legislation?
Well, look, I
think the Senate should function differently than now. I was in the House, you
get one-vote majority, you got it. I like the idea of in the Senate, people
having the opposition to stand up for — I was on the floor of the Senate, some
of you may know, for eight-and-a-half hours voicing objection to a particular
proposal.Senator Sanders’s filibuster on Bush-era tax cuts in 2010 lasted eight
hours and 37 minutes. Some Democratic contenders, like Senator Warren and Tom
Steyer, have said they would abolish the filibuster. Senator Sanders has said
he is open to changes in the filibuster, but not to its elimination. I think
that’s O.K. But if anybody here thinks that I will not use the rules of the
Senate to make sure that we will pass the legislation that needs to be passed
with 51 votes. When you are the president, the vice president, your vice
president, is the presiding officer, and we can do what other presidents have
done, and make sure that majority rule will reign when it comes to the major
issues. So I like the idea of members of the minority having the freedom to
voice their objections, but we will not require 60 votes to save the planet or
to pass Medicare for All, or to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, that’s
for sure.
KK: Senator,
we’re running out of time. We have ——
I’m just
getting warmed up. [LAUGHTER]
KK: Just for a
couple more questions. The first of which is, if you are not the nominee, will
you support whoever is the Democratic nominee?
I’ve said that
five million times.
KK: O.K. And my
colleague Brent will end.
BStaples: So it
may come to a point where your agenda clashes with the goal of defeating Trump.
O.K. I mean, are you willing to sort of part with your agenda if it turns out
that way to defeat Trump?
I don’t agree
with your basic assertion.
BStaples: No.
I think my
agenda is ——
BStaples: Just
think a hypothetical.
I think, look,
I’ve been doing this thing for a few years.
BStaples: So
have I.Brent Staples has been on the Times editorial board since 1990.
I know. I think
my agenda is what the American people want. I think it is precisely — you want
to lose to Trump? Do politics as usual. That’s the way you lose to Trump.
That’s what he wants. You rally the American people around an agenda that works
for working people, you defeat him. That’s the only way that I know how to defeat
him.
BStaples: One
last thing from me, what is it — this calls for you to be a little
self-critical. What are you likely to fail at or to do poorly as president?
Talk to The New
York Times. [LAUGHTER] Look, I don’t tolerate [expletive] terribly well, and I
come from a different background than a lot of other people who run the
country. I’m not good at backslapping. I’m not good at pleasantries. If you
have your birthday, I’m not going to call you up to congratulate you, so you’ll
love me and you’ll write nice things about me.Senator Sanders played to his
curmudgeonly reputation in a cameo in the 1988 film “Sweet Hearts Dance,” where
he briefly appeared as himself being egged. That’s not what I do. Never have. I
take that as a little bit of a criticism, self-criticism. I have been amazed at
how many people respond to, “Happy Birthday!” “Oh Bernie, thanks so much for
calling.” It works. It’s just not my style. I try to stay focused on the
important issues facing working families in this country, and I fight for them.
KK: So, we’ve
run out of time. Thank you very much for coming.
Thank you very
much.
This interview
was conducted Dec. 3, 2019, and published Jan. 13, 2020.
Correction: An
earlier version of this annotated transcript misstated the name of one of
Senator Sanders’s supporters. It is Nina Turner, an Ohio Democrat who is
co-chair of the Sanders campaign, not Tina Turner, the entertainer.
Illustrations
by Jules Julien; Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
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