Sen. Bernie Sanders

comes off with a horning wand.

It's engraved for President Trump.

It's a unique unit of wand.

I was in D.C.

There were some 200,000 people out in D.C.

There were some 7 million people out in 2,600 events all over the country, not only in big cities, but in small towns.

Bottom line, extraordinary.

People came out.

They said no to Trumpism, no to authoritarianism, no to oligarchy.

Well, let me just say two things.

We are in an extraordinarily dangerous time, as you know.

You've got an authoritarian president who wants more and more power, doesn't respect the Constitution, doesn't respect the law.

Well, it's the Supreme Court that's granting it to him.

Right.

That's true.

I mean, that's part of the process.

You've got a Republican Party that's now lockstep.

It's kind of a cult of the individual.

We've got to stop them.

But there's something else that we've got to do, John.

We have to have a vision for the future of this country.

And I think that many of my colleagues in the Democratic Party have not had that vision.

And what that means is that we should not accept the fact that we have so much income and wealth inequality, that you got one guy, Mr. Musk, owning more wealth than the bottom 52% of the American people, that we have a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires in both parties to determine who wins and who loses elections.

And the vision has got to be, and I want people to think about this,

In this extraordinarily great country, wealthy country, why don't we guarantee health care to every man, woman, and child at the end of life?

And it's a conscious decision.

I mean, look.

It's my GPS.

I'm near right.

Look, and a lot of that gets back to money.

Basically, if you're a political party, you've got to make a decision.

Do you go where the money is, where the billionaires are, where the super PACs are, and kind of do what these guys want?

Or do you go where the working class and the middle class of this country are?

And those are people who are hurting, who want real change.

Now, I'll give Donald Trump, he may be crazy, he may be a pathological liar, but he's not stupid.

It's classic.

But what I mean by that is the message that he gives off in one way or another is the system is broken, right?

Yes.

And I alone can fix the system.

Well, the truth is the system is broken.

He is making it worse.

But the Democrats have got to acknowledge that the system is broken.

But it's not only some of his policies.

Some of his other policies, let's not forget, is throwing 15 million people off the health care they have and doubling health care premiums.

I didn't say he was perfect.

And giving a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1%.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's true.

All right.

So what do we got to do?

I mean, first of all, you got to acknowledge bloody reality.

Health care system is broken.

Boom.

All right.

We need to do what every other major country does.

Guarantee health care to every man, woman and child.

Take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance companies.

OK, we're spending more than enough money to guarantee good quality health care to every person.

All right.

What else do you got to do?

We need the Democratic Party to be very clear.

The campaign system, current campaign finance system is broken.

You got to get rid of Citizens United.

You got to move to public funding of elections.

Give everybody a chance to participate in our democracy.

I happen, you know, I've always been deeply concerned about health care as a human right.

And this is something that is so doable.

We are the odd guy out as a country.

I live 50 miles away from Canada.

You spend a month in a hospital encounter.

You know what the bill is when you come out?

Zero.

They spend half as much per capita as we do on health care.

They guarantee health care to all of their people.

This can be done.

Absolutely doable.

The other thing we could do, young people today find it extremely hard to buy their own home.

Cost of housing is off the charts.

Why aren't we building four or five million units of low-income and affordable housing?

Well, to be fair...

Look, here's where we are right now, and I think it's not been made as clear as it should.

If Trump gets away with what he wants...

We are looking at 15 million people losing their health insurance, and according to studies, John, 50,000 low-income and working-class people dying every year unnecessarily.

You're low-income, you're working-class, you don't have any health, you have a chronic ill, you die.

That's what they're saying.

On top of that, all over the country... You do die anyway.

Just...

But you don't have to die just because you can't get to a doctor.

That is disgusting.

And then on top of that, because of the cuts to the ACA, you're looking at some 20-plus million people seeing a doubling of their premiums at a time when they can't even afford health care right now.

All right, so your point is, is this a good system?

No.

To defend today, yes.

To spend any political capital.

All right, but obviously, obviously.

Right.

It is a system designed to make huge profits for the insurance companies and the drug companies.

Right.

Period.

We have got to move to a Medicare for all single payer program.

Absolutely.

The irony is in the caucus, I am outside of the caucus in the real world.

I am not.

Right.

That's the point.

Yeah.

All right.

I think there is, oh, Bernie, it's too radical.

Oh, Bernie, you know, money from insurance companies, drug companies, you know, all that stuff.

We've got all kinds of opposition.

Well, these are nonverbal communications.

A little nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Yeah.

Look, these guys, last count, there were 1,500 lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry in Washington, DC.

And that's why you are paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

But then you got other things.

70 years ago, I don't know how many people know this, most or many public colleges and universities were tuition-free in America.

Sure.

My parents went to City College.

There you go.

Great universities.

It was free.

California, highest quality education, tuition-free.

And now working class families can't afford to send their kids to college.

Right, right, right.

What they end up doing is coming up with very complicated proposals.

You make $48,964.

Yes!

You will get this thing.

You make a dollar more, you're finished, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Look, we have got to make it simple.

In the wealthiest country in the history of the world, should health care be a human right?

Yes, it should be.

Should we have the best quality education in the world from child care to graduate school?

Yes, we should.

Right, but these are... How do you... Let's get there.

All right, then the question is... I'm writing this down, Sanders.

All right, the Republicans... You're getting violent here, you know.

You're right, you're right.

All right.

You know, and what we need is a very simple, straightforward agenda, which says, by the way, and this is really a sticky point,

You've got to finally say to the oligarchs who have never, ever had it so good, they're making money hand over fist.

All right?

And you've got to say to them, sorry, guys, a billion dollars is enough.

You ain't going to have $200 billion or $300 billion.

Try to survive on a mere billion.

You're going to start paying your fair share of taxes.

I think it does.

I think it does.

I mean, they've seen a boldness on the part of Trump using his power in a way that we have never seen before.

So I hope it awakens Democrats to understand.

But the revolution, the political revolution that we need also means an involvement.

And this is what was so exciting about the No Kings Day.

Seven million people coming out.

We need all of you to be involved in this.

It's got to be a bottom on up revolution, not a top down.

I knew I'd get to it at some point.

Finally, I've been waiting, John.

You finally said something relevant here.

Look, I know people say, oh, we don't want the government to regulate, you know, corporate.

The truth of the matter is, it's quite the opposite right now.

It is the corporate world, it is the oligarchs who are regulating the government.

They have far more power.

And we have got to create a political movement, a grassroots movement, which takes control of the future of this country.

Let me give you one example.

right now we are in the midst as everybody knows of these the musks of the world and the bezos and all these guys putting hundreds of billions of dollars into ai and robotics right this is going to transform our world it's going to transform our economy in my view in the view of a number of economists it means millions and millions of workers are going to be displaced from their jobs

Who is engaging in that discussion to say, hey, Mr. Musk, you can't make the decision for the future of humanity.

We are going to make the future.

And that is if AI works, it's going to work for working people, not just billionaires.

I'll go to you one further.

Why are you always going with me one further?

I'm not radical.

Absolutely.

And they're being resisted all over the country.

It's electricity.

It's water.

Scarce water is going to be used.

I like both of those.

All right.

But the bottom line is...

These technologies are going to transform the world.

We have got to make sure that they work for working people, not just enrich the people on top.

What does that mean?

Well, among other things, if we increase worker productivity, we can lower the work week from 40 hours a week to at least 32 hours a week.

American workers are unbelievably productive.

That is the profound point.

Over the last 52 years, with all of the increase in worker productivity and technology, the average American worker, blue collar workers, earning less today than he did then.

That's insane.

Well, you know, I think, sadly, it gets back to money again.

You know, if you don't want to say things that antagonize your campaign donors, then you have to wiggle the model.

John, the Pentagon, I voted against this, but Congress is going to pass a trillion dollar for the military.

The Pentagon never passed an audit.

Exactly.

They have the only government agent, major government agency, not to pass an audit.

No one denies that there is massive.

They don't even know what they own.

All right.

And they're paying the salaries of the people of Lockheed Martin and all this other stuff off the charts.

So your point is well taken.

And we've got to take a look at the incredible greed.

You know, these people on top are very religious people.

Do you know that?

They're very religious people.

Their religion is greed.

They worship at the altar of money.

But the government has leverage.

They've got to use it.

I have another room.

The door is locked.

And there are some very, very serious discussions about what we have to do to prevent this country becoming an authoritarian society.

But, John, the answer is not just within the room of the people currently elected.

What we are seeing all over this country right now are great young people like Mr. Mamdani right here in the city of New York.

And it's not just him.

You're beginning to see good candidates who have the guts to say, I am going to take on the oligarchs.

I am going to stand with the working class.

That is what we have got to develop in this country.