As Americans’ faith in government reaches historic lows and billionaires turn their attention to government efficiency, we are joined by Senator Bernie Sanders. Together, we discuss how to restore trust in public institutions by making them more accountable and responsive to the needs of the people. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Researcher & Associate Producer – Gillian Spear Music by Hansdle Hsu — This podcast is brought to you by: ZipRecruiter Try it for free at this exclusive web address: ziprecruiter.com/ZipWeekly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the current challenges facing American democracy?
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the weekly show pod. My name is Jon Stewart. This is our, I don't know if it's our, it's not our last, it may be our penultimate weekly show pod. For this, the Lord's year of 2024, which has been, I don't know if you guys have known this, but a little tumultuous.
We appear to be in a transitional period where we are not sure about whether the ground we are standing on is solid. Although the news media seems convinced that we are solid.
the roadrunner and the coyote, and the coyote has run over the cliff and we just looked down and realized there's nothing under our feet and now we are plunging to our deaths because the news media is always very circumspect. We don't know what's going to happen when Donald Trump takes over. Unfortunately, we can't see into the future, but we have to be prepared for all outcomes.
I don't know how helpful it is to get us shitting our pants this much this early, but I guess it's always important to stay on top of it. It's kind of why I'm actually really excited to have this podcast. I am convinced it must be such a strange thing. It is for me, for someone who has kind of complained about
Wanting government to be more efficient and more responsive and making fundamental changes to see that mantle being carried out by a group of people that I don't necessarily trust to do it in a manner that is. But I guess that's what it is when you, that's what losing elections is, man. You don't get to dictate anymore. You don't get to say, well, what if we did it this way?
Uh, that's, that's the beauty of it. This is in, in the joint custody agreement that we now have in America. Uh, it is, I guess the kids are, they're going to live with dad for the summer and you just got to fucking eat it. Just, just, I don't want them going on the lake in the raft. And you're like, well, you're not here. You're not in charge. So you don't get to decide.
And that's boy, it's, it's.
that's a tough one but uh i'm really excited for our our guest today because i think he has embodied somebody who's been really consistent about fighting for the rights of workers and fighting for an economy that more aligns with i think what a healthy society should align their economy with and more bottom up and and more respect for work and labor and and and not causing people to get squeezed
in such a way that everything feels so tenuous all the time. So I'm excited to get to him. I won't babble around any longer. I'll just get to it. So let's welcome in right now, we're delighted that he can join us, independent Senator Bernie Sanders, chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. And Senator, thank you so much for being here today. I'm excited to talk to you.
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Chapter 2: How can government become more efficient and responsive?
We have beaten down government for so many years that it is hard even to attract those people into the bureaucracy.
But the bureaucracy, to be fair, is responsible for some of this. They layer in regular, I mean, it's when you talk about homelessness, really hard to build new housing. You know, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, there's a giant fire on 95. The road collapses. If you had gone through standard regulatory proceedings of the government, the damn thing would still be closed.
He did it in 10 days because he said, screw it. I'm not going to do this the way we normally do it. Good. And that is we need more of that. That kind of thinking.
What the right wing will do is say, oh, we don't need all these regulations and therefore we don't have to worry about the environment. We don't have to worry about bigotry and racism. I don't believe in that. But it shouldn't take you 28 years to go to make sure that a project is environmentally sound, for example. So you're right. I mean, they can use that. But I want to get back to this point.
Give you an example. I read something which to me was surprising and a bit shocking. Question to you. You are a Ph.D. candidate. Oh, we're already off the rails, Senator. We're already off the rails in a major university in physics and mathematics. OK, you're working on your Ph.D. Where are you going to go when you get that Ph.D. ?
What are you going to do? I'm assuming you're going to stay in the same building and teach the next people that are coming up with a PhD.
That's what most people would think. But you know what? More and more of those folks in math, physics, they're going to Wall Street. Oh. They're using those skills for high-speed trading, to know how to manipulate the market, take advantage of the market. It takes a certain skill to do that. So you've got all these guys... I mean, again, it gets back to money being the end all of everything.
And I want to see us have a day come when somebody says, I am so excited. And by the way, in Finland, to some degree, they do that. Only the top students end up going into education. Do you know that in Finland? No. They did. It's a very prestigious job to be a teacher. I want to see that in America. Hey, I'm really proud to work at the Social Security Administration.
We're getting the benefits out on time. People are really excited and happy about it. Proud of what I'm doing. I want to see that pride. And I don't want to see young people just going out saying, I got to make more and more money. That's what life is about.
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