The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1330 - Bernie Sanders

00:00:03.000 Hello, Bernie.

00:00:04.000 How are you, Joe?

00:00:06.000 Wonderful.

00:00:06.000 Pleasure to meet you.

00:00:07.000 Nice to meet you.

00:00:08.000 It's exciting to have you here, man.

00:00:09.000 And it's obviously an exciting time for you.

00:00:13.000 You know, the presidential campaign is up in full swing.

00:00:15.000 Do you get frustrated by the time constraints?

00:00:20.000 Of the debates?

00:00:21.000 Absolutely.

00:00:24.000 You shouldn't even call them a debate.

00:00:26.000 What they are is a reality TV show in which you have to come up with a soundbite and all that stuff.

00:00:34.000 It is demeaning.

00:00:35.000 It's demeaning to the candidates and it's demeaning to the American people.

00:00:38.000 You can't explain the complexity of healthcare in America in 45 seconds.

00:00:43.000 Nobody can.

00:00:44.000 But why is it still done that way?

00:00:47.000 Let's pull this thing like that.

00:00:50.000 You know, I think the DNC is in a difficult position.

00:00:54.000 They have 20-plus candidates and they want to give everybody a fair shot, which is the right thing to do.

00:01:01.000 And then if you're going to have 10 candidates up on the stage, what do you do?

00:01:05.000 But there are other ways that we've got to do it because the issues facing this country are so enormous and in some cases so complicated.

00:01:13.000 Nobody in the world can honestly explain them in 45 seconds.

00:01:16.000 And what encourages people to do is to come up with soundbites or do absurd things.

00:01:20.000 If I yelled and screamed on the show, I took my clothes off, we get a lot of publicity, right?

00:01:25.000 But if you give a thoughtful answer to a complicated question, it's not so sexy for the media.

00:01:29.000 You don't even have a chance to give a thoughtful answer.

00:01:31.000 Like Tulsi Gabbard went after Kamala Harris and then Kamala Harris had about 12 seconds to reply to it. 0.97

00:01:38.000 It was so ridiculous to have something that's such an important issue.

00:01:43.000 Did you or did you not put all those people in jail for marijuana? 0.85

00:01:47.000 Did you laugh about it?

00:01:48.000 Did this happen?

00:01:49.000 Did that happen?

00:01:49.000 All these different things.

00:01:50.000 Was evidence withheld?

00:01:53.000 These are long conversations.

00:01:55.000 But it takes us to another issue, and that as a nation, we do a pretty bad job in analyzing and discussing the serious issues facing our country.

00:02:05.000 And I hold the media to some degree responsible for that.

00:02:09.000 You know, other countries, what they do...

00:02:10.000 He says, hey, Joe, you want to run for president?

00:02:12.000 I'll tell you about your party in the general election.

00:02:15.000 We're going to give you a certain amount of time, hours, on television.

00:02:19.000 And you use those hours any way you want.

00:02:21.000 You want a 15-minute discourse?

00:02:23.000 You remember Ross Perot?

00:02:24.000 And people used to laugh at Ross Perot.

00:02:27.000 Because he used to get up there with a chart and all this stuff, and the media made fun of him.

00:02:31.000 But in fact, he tried in his own way to explain his point of view to the American people.

00:02:36.000 And we need serious discussion on serious issues.

00:02:39.000 Well, because he was so rich, he had the ability to buy airtime on network television, which is pretty unprecedented.

00:02:45.000 He just bought… But you know what goes on in other countries?

00:02:52.000 You don't have to buy that time.

00:02:53.000 What the obligation is, if you are a network, you're going to make that time free and available to candidates.

00:03:00.000 Do you think that that's something that could be viable in America?

00:03:03.000 I mean, could you convince CBS and NBC and ABC to go along with something like that?

00:03:08.000 No, you couldn't convince them.

00:03:09.000 You'd have to pass legislation to make that happen.

00:03:11.000 But everyone's online today.

00:03:13.000 I mean, the entire country is essentially getting email and Facebook and all that jazz.

00:03:18.000 Like, why bother doing it in this particular medium that has an inherent time constraint?

00:03:24.000 Well, you're right.

00:03:25.000 I mean, the Internet has revolutionized politics, and in many ways, good ways.

00:03:31.000 We use our social media, our email list, which is very large.

00:03:35.000 Every day we're sending out stuff, and other candidates are doing it the same way.

00:03:38.000 But television still has a very important role to be playing.

00:03:41.000 I'm sure it does, but I mean, the ability to discuss things in long form, like you can do online, like you can do right here, right now, you can't get that on television.

00:03:51.000 Well, you could.

00:03:52.000 I mean, if you had, sure you could.

00:03:54.000 They would have to interrupt you every 15 minutes or so for commercials.

00:03:56.000 No, no, no, no.

00:03:57.000 What I'm saying about is, and what goes on in other countries, if I'm not mistaken, don't hold me to this, I think in the UK, you're a member of the Labour Party, you're a candidate.

00:04:06.000 He has 30 minutes of time, and you do with it as you want.

00:04:09.000 You want to speak 30 minutes on healthcare, whatever it may be, you can do then.

00:04:12.000 Really?

00:04:13.000 Yeah.

00:04:13.000 And they don't interrupt with commercials?

00:04:14.000 No, no, no, no.

00:04:15.000 That's the law that they have given – this is the candidate's opportunity to speak at length to the people of the country.

00:04:22.000 What are the misconceptions of you?

00:04:25.000 Because here's the – if you go to the knee-jerk conservative reaction, you talk to people who are not interested in anyone that wants to be a democratic socialist – They hear the name Bernie Sanders.

00:04:37.000 The negative implications are that you are somehow or another going to take their money, right?

00:04:43.000 Is that annoying to you?

00:04:44.000 Yes, it is.

00:04:45.000 Of course it is.

00:04:46.000 And also that I'm Mr. Maduro.

00:04:48.000 I'm a dictator.

00:04:49.000 I love dictatorships and all that stuff.

00:04:52.000 And the truth is, Joe, that if you look at the issues that I campaign on and what I believe on, they are really not terribly radical.

00:05:01.000 They exist in many countries all over the world.

00:05:04.000 For example, just, we can start on healthcare if you'd like.

00:05:08.000 Is the idea that healthcare is a human right, not a privilege, a radical idea?

00:05:13.000 I don't think it is.

00:05:14.000 It's not.

00:05:14.000 And the truth is, we are the only major country on Earth.

00:05:17.000 Many people don't know this.

00:05:19.000 We're the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right, and yet we end up spending almost twice as much per capita on health care.

00:05:28.000 The function, and you can argue with me if you want, but the function of the current health care system is not to provide quality care to all.

00:05:35.000 It is to make tens of billions of dollars in profit for the drug companies and the insurance companies.

00:05:41.000 That's the function.

00:05:43.000 If you go to Canada, and I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border, you have major heart surgery.

00:05:48.000 You're in the hospital for a month.

00:05:50.000 Do you know what the bill is when you get out?

00:05:52.000 Zero.

00:05:52.000 You got it.

00:05:53.000 You go to any doctor you want.

00:05:54.000 You don't have to take out your wallet.

00:05:56.000 And yet they guarantee health care to all of their people, and they spend one half of what we spend.

00:06:01.000 That's kind of what I want to do, and I don't think that that's terribly radical.

00:06:04.000 We have a program now, which everybody knows.

00:06:06.000 It's called Medicare.

00:06:07.000 It was started by Lyndon Johnson back in 1965. It is a popular program.

00:06:13.000 All that I want to do over a four-year period is to expand it.

00:06:16.000 Today, eligibility age is 65. I want to take it down to 55, 45, 35, everybody over a four-year period. 0.95

00:06:22.000 That's about it.

00:06:23.000 And I want to expand benefits to include dental care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses as well.

00:06:29.000 That's about it.

00:06:30.000 Not too radical.

00:06:31.000 That doesn't sound radical at all.

00:06:32.000 Now when you say that Canada spends less, obviously they have less people.

00:06:35.000 You mean less per capita?

00:06:36.000 Yes, half per capita.

00:06:37.000 Exactly, per capita.

00:06:39.000 And the quality of care is as good or better.

00:06:42.000 Do they have problems?

00:06:43.000 Yeah, they have problems.

00:06:44.000 Everybody has problems.

00:06:45.000 But overall, the healthcare experts will tell you the quality of care there is as good or better than it is in our country.

00:06:52.000 So what's the hurdle?

00:06:54.000 Okay, I'll tell you exactly what the hurdle is.

00:06:55.000 The hurdle is exactly the same thing as in every other aspect of our lives.

00:07:00.000 It's the power of money.

00:07:01.000 Alright, listen to this.

00:07:03.000 Over the last 20 years, the drug companies alone have spent four and a half billion dollars in 20 years on lobbying and campaign contributions.

00:07:16.000 That's what we're up against.

00:07:18.000 The knowledge, and I mark my words, within a short period of time, you will see TV ads in California all over this country demonizing Bernie Sanders.

00:07:26.000 He wants to do this terrible thing to you.

00:07:28.000 He wants to do that.

00:07:30.000 They have unbelievable amounts of money, and politicians are frightened of that power.

00:07:36.000 I'll give you one example.

00:07:38.000 Back in 2016, I got involved here in a little way with an effort on the part of the nurses to control the cost of prescription drugs in California.

00:07:47.000 You may recall that effort.

00:07:48.000 I do.

00:07:49.000 It was a ballot item in one state here in California.

00:07:52.000 Do you know how much the drug companies alone spent to defeat that effort?

00:07:55.000 They spent $131 million on one ballot item in one state.

00:08:01.000 Last year, the top 10 drug companies made $69 billion A week ago, I went to Canada with a number of Americans who are dealing with diabetes.

00:08:11.000 We bought insulin in Windsor, Ontario for one-tenth the price, 10% of the price, same exact product, being charged in America.

00:08:20.000 So you've got drug companies that are engaged in collusion and in price-fixing who are incredibly greedy, and the result is many elderly people, many working people simply cannot afford the medicine they need.

00:08:32.000 It's unbelievable.

00:08:33.000 And the reason for all of that stuff is we are the only country in the world that does not negotiate with the drug companies.

00:08:38.000 They can charge you any price they want.

00:08:41.000 And that has to do with the fact that we don't have a national health care program, Medicare is not negotiating, etc.

00:08:46.000 Is this something that can really be implemented inside of four years?

00:08:49.000 It seems like it's an enormous endeavor.

00:08:52.000 Well, I want you to think back.

00:08:53.000 Think back, Joe.

00:08:54.000 In 1965, you had Lyndon Johnson as president.

00:09:00.000 And by the way, this idea of national health care, this has been talked about literally since Teddy Roosevelt.

00:09:07.000 It's not a new concept.

00:09:08.000 Health care is a human right.

00:09:09.000 That's what Teddy Roosevelt was talking about.

00:09:10.000 That's what FDR was talking about.

00:09:12.000 Harry Truman was talking about it.

00:09:14.000 Kennedy was talking about it.

00:09:15.000 Kennedy got killed.

00:09:17.000 Lyndon Johnson picked up the mantle.

00:09:19.000 And their idea was, according to people in their administration, we'll start with the elderly who are most impacted by healthcare costs and sickness.

00:09:28.000 We'll start, and they did.

00:09:30.000 In 1965, without the technology we have today, they implemented Medicare.

00:09:36.000 19 million people, elderly people, signed up in the first year.

00:09:39.000 So, if you could start a brand new program, And have 19 million people sign up with a technology that is way, way behind where we are today, why can't we over a four year period simply expand that program?

00:09:51.000 I don't think it's such a difficult operation.

00:09:54.000 So when you talk about the drug companies and the lobbyists and the enormous amount of money that they spend, does this exist anywhere else other than the United States, lobbyists on that level?

00:10:04.000 No.

00:10:07.000 And the reason, you know, in Canada what you have is you have a national healthcare program and so forth.

00:10:13.000 And they sit down and, A, they negotiate with the drug companies.

00:10:16.000 They have their own approach.

00:10:17.000 But every other major country on earth says to the drug companies, of course you can't charge us any price you want.

00:10:23.000 This is a reasonable price.

00:10:24.000 Tell me what your profits are, what your expenditures are.

00:10:26.000 This is a price.

00:10:27.000 For us, you can walk in, you know, if you have an illness, you can walk into the pharmacy tomorrow and the price has been doubled and you say to the pharmacist, what happened?

00:10:34.000 They just raised their prices.

00:10:36.000 They could do it any day they want, any price they want.

00:10:40.000 Now, lobbyists are, in general, when people talk about lobbyists, it's an unattractive term.

00:10:46.000 We think a bit in terms of a negative.

00:10:48.000 We don't think of, oh, thank God there's lobbyists.

00:10:51.000 We think, wow, there's someone with enormous amounts of money using that money to gain influence on politicians, and it shapes regular people, it shapes our lives, mostly in a negative way.

00:11:03.000 This is the way most people look at it.

00:11:04.000 I'm not saying it's correct.

00:11:06.000 Why do we have that system in place?

00:11:09.000 Like, why do we have lobbies?

00:11:10.000 Why is it legal for someone to spend exorbitant amounts of money to affect our civilization, to affect the way our culture works?

00:11:20.000 Now you're taking us into a whole new area.

00:11:22.000 Yeah.

00:11:23.000 Alright, let's look.

00:11:24.000 Let me detour and I'll come back.

00:11:26.000 Please do.

00:11:29.000 Today in America, you've got three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of the American society.

00:11:36.000 You don't see that on television too much, do you?

00:11:38.000 No, you don't.

00:11:39.000 Three people.

00:11:40.000 You've got the top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 92%.

00:11:44.000 Listen to this.

00:11:45.000 This is a statistic we recently saw.

00:11:47.000 It came from the Federal Reserve.

00:11:49.000 Over the last 30 years, the top 1% has seen a $21 trillion increase in their wealth.

00:11:56.000 The bottom half of America has seen a $900 billion decline in their wealth.

00:12:01.000 So what you have in America today is a relatively small number of incredibly wealthy people.

00:12:07.000 And I deal with these guys every day.

00:12:08.000 People say, oh, we're talking about rich.

00:12:10.000 You don't know what rich is, what multi-billion dollar operations are.

00:12:15.000 Incredible power over our society.

00:12:18.000 And if you were the pharmaceutical industry, and last year 10 companies made $69 billion in profit, you're sitting around right now saying, all right, that's great.

00:12:26.000 How do we do better next year?

00:12:28.000 What strategy do we have?

00:12:29.000 We're going to put a lot of ads on.

00:12:31.000 We're going to work with other companies.

00:12:32.000 During the CNN debate that I participated in recently, in the debate, right in the middle of the debate, The drug companies and the insurance companies had an ad telling how bad so-called, how bad Medicare for all would be.

00:12:44.000 So they're smart guys.

00:12:46.000 And they use their power over politicians. 0.94

00:12:49.000 They use their power over the media.

00:12:50.000 They spend billions of dollars on advertising on media to make sure that they make as much as they can in profit.

00:12:56.000 But it's not any different with Wall Street.

00:12:58.000 It's not any different with the fossil fuel industry.

00:13:01.000 Or the prison industrial complex.

00:13:03.000 These guys have wealth.

00:13:05.000 They have power.

00:13:05.000 And they could care less about the needs of working people in this country.

00:13:09.000 And that's the dynamic of American politics right now.

00:13:12.000 And in our campaign, look, we're taking them all on.

00:13:15.000 And I know it makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

00:13:18.000 But we are taking on all of these entities and all of their wealth and all of their power.

00:13:23.000 And that's what a political revolution is about.

00:13:26.000 So the real problem seems to be that they have this strategy of unlimited growth, not that they're not providing medication that people need to save their lives.

00:13:35.000 I mean, it's obviously important to have pharmaceutical companies.

00:13:39.000 Of course, of course.

00:13:39.000 Right.

00:13:40.000 So there's good that they provide, but the business aspect of it is where the problem lies, right?

00:13:44.000 Right.

00:13:45.000 Look, they have great researches, but if you check how they even spend their money, You know, they will tell you this.

00:13:51.000 All of their money are research and develop.

00:13:53.000 We're tackling cancer.

00:13:54.000 We're tackling diabetes, Alzheimer's.

00:13:56.000 The truth is, of course, they are.

00:13:58.000 But the bulk of their money...

00:14:00.000 Is going off into what we call Me Too drugs.

00:14:03.000 They make modest changes in the drug which really doesn't improve people's well-being in order to make profits.

00:14:08.000 So the answer is yes.

00:14:09.000 We need obviously vigorous research and development.

00:14:12.000 And by the way, your tax dollars, all of our tax dollars often goes to that research and we don't get the benefit of it in terms of lower prices.

00:14:21.000 So it's just, it's a business model issue.

00:14:24.000 It's a greed issue.

00:14:25.000 You've got it.

00:14:26.000 And how would one stop that?

00:14:29.000 When you're dealing with this, the kind of influence that you're talking about with $69 billion in a year, I mean, the resources they have, how would you stop that?

00:14:38.000 Well, that is kind of what we call the $64 question.

00:14:42.000 And I'll tell you what I think.

00:14:45.000 This is what I believe.

00:14:46.000 If you think back on American history and you think about the real changes that have taken place in society, You think about the labor movement and working class people standing up and saying to their employers,

00:15:02.000 we're not going to be treated like animals anymore.

00:15:04.000 You can't hire and fire us.

00:15:05.000 You can't work us, you know, 15 hours a day.

00:15:08.000 We deserve dignity.

00:15:10.000 And you think about the growth of the labor movement of millions of people beginning to stand together and fight.

00:15:15.000 You think about the civil rights movement, you know.

00:15:18.000 And it wasn't just Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was, again, millions of African Americans and their white allies saying, we're going to end segregation and racism in this country.

00:15:26.000 Think about the women's movement.

00:15:28.000 A hundred years ago, women in America didn't even have the right to vote. 1.00

00:15:31.000 Think about the gay rights movement.

00:15:33.000 Think about the environmental.

00:15:34.000 The only way that change takes place is when ordinary people come together and stand up and fight and say that the status quo is not working.

00:15:44.000 And that's what I believe, and that's what we're trying to do.

00:15:46.000 So the message of our campaign is it's us, not me, because I can't do it alone.

00:15:52.000 Let me be very honest with you.

00:15:54.000 If I were elected president tomorrow, I can't do the things that I would like to do, that I'm campaigning on, unless millions of people were working with me to tell the corporate elite that they cannot get it all.

00:16:07.000 So how would that be implemented?

00:16:08.000 Let's say you become president.

00:16:10.000 You're going to become president?

00:16:11.000 What do you think?

00:16:12.000 I think we got a shot at it.

00:16:12.000 You got a shot.

00:16:13.000 All right.

00:16:14.000 President Bernie, what do you do?

00:16:15.000 You get in there.

00:16:16.000 What do you do?

00:16:17.000 Okay.

00:16:18.000 First of all, you make it clear to the American people what your agenda is.

00:16:24.000 And I appreciate the opportunity to talk about an agenda.

00:16:28.000 In more than 12 seconds.

00:16:30.000 What does that mean?

00:16:31.000 We're going to fight for Medicare for all.

00:16:33.000 We're going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage.

00:16:37.000 We are going to deal with education in a profound way because I worry about what's going on in education today.

00:16:44.000 Everybody knows that the ages of zero through four are the most important years for human intellectual and emotional development.

00:16:53.000 Right?

00:16:54.000 Every psychologist will tell you that.

00:16:55.000 And yet we have a totally dysfunctional early childhood system.

00:17:00.000 We pay our childcare workers starvation wages, yet working class families cannot find affordable quality childcare.

00:17:08.000 You've got our public school systems All around this country, and many of them really being challenged right now.

00:17:16.000 Teachers are underpaid.

00:17:17.000 Teachers are working two or three jobs.

00:17:18.000 You've got kids who can't afford to go to college.

00:17:20.000 And here's something that is just unbelievable.

00:17:23.000 Kids who have gone to college leaving school with $50,000, $100,000 in debt.

00:17:29.000 Unbelievable.

00:17:30.000 These are issues that we have to deal with, and I will deal with them.

00:17:34.000 And we are going to substantially improve the quality of education in America.

00:17:39.000 We're going to cancel student debt by imposing a tax on Wall Street speculation.

00:17:43.000 So you've got to deal with education.

00:17:45.000 You've got to deal with climate change.

00:17:47.000 The truth is that Donald Trump is dead wrong.

00:17:51.000 Climate change is not a hoax.

00:17:53.000 It is a very, very dangerous reality for our country and the rest of the world.

00:17:57.000 Scientists tell us we have less than 12 years.

00:18:00.000 To transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, or there will be irreparable damage.

00:18:05.000 All right.

00:18:06.000 So those are, and healthcare, of course, for all.

00:18:08.000 So those are some of the major issues, criminal justice, immigration reform.

00:18:12.000 You lay it on the table.

00:18:13.000 You see, these are the issues that we are going to focus on.

00:18:16.000 And you rally the American people around those issues, and you tell people like Mitch McConnell, who represents a very poor state in Kentucky, that Mitch, if you are going to oppose raising that minimum wage to at least 15 bucks an hour, I will be in Kentucky as President of the United States,

00:18:34.000 and we're going to have a rally.

00:18:36.000 Because you're going to have to stop representing, and I hope, by the way, that Mitch McConnell is not the leader.

00:18:41.000 I hope the Democrats can gain control over the Senate.

00:18:44.000 But if he is, we'll put enormous pressure on him to do what the people want.

00:18:48.000 Every idea, Joe, here's the bottom line on this thing.

00:18:50.000 Every idea that I've just talked to you about is supported by a majority of the American people.

00:18:54.000 These are not radical ideas.

00:18:57.000 Let's take these one step at a time because you mentioned a lot of important things there.

00:19:00.000 Let's go with the minimum wage thing.

00:19:02.000 Now, the argument that I've heard about the minimum wage being raised to $15 an hour is that there are entry-level positions for high school kids, for people that are just getting their feet wet in the marketplace, they're learning how to work, they're making some money after school, that if you charge or if businesses have to pay $15 an hour to people like that,

00:19:23.000 to entry-level people, that they won't be able to stay open.

00:19:27.000 Well, first of all, they will be competing against, you know, if you're a business and I'm a business, and both of us have to raise our wages at the same level, we both have the same burden, so it's spread across.

00:19:40.000 That is what my conservative colleagues will tell you.

00:19:43.000 The truth is, I don't have the numbers right in front of me, that while it certainly is true that young people do work at McDonald's in the minimum wage jobs, a significant majority of the workers are not kids.

00:19:56.000 They are often, and I've met them at McDonald's, They are workers who have children themselves.

00:20:04.000 We work very hard to raise the minimum wage at Amazon and at Disney.

00:20:09.000 We put pressure on both of those companies and they did the right thing.

00:20:12.000 And when you talk to the people at Amazon who got that raise, These are not kids.

00:20:17.000 These are people in their 30s.

00:20:19.000 These are ordinary adults who cannot make it on 12 or 13 bucks an hour.

00:20:24.000 So I think the argument that, oh, they're old kids, is not really quite accurate.

00:20:30.000 Well, not even that they're all kids, but that if they are kids, what would you think about making a minimum wage for someone who's under 18 that's different from a minimum wage for someone who's a legal adult?

00:20:40.000 I'm not for that.

00:20:42.000 I think we do it.

00:20:43.000 And look, many of these young people have their own needs.

00:20:48.000 I just talked to a young woman.

00:20:50.000 Last night, who is working, going to college, working full-time, trying to take care of her family as well.

00:20:56.000 So I think, look, the minimum wage has not been raised in 10 years.

00:20:59.000 It is now $7.25 an hour, which is clearly unacceptable.

00:21:04.000 The cost of housing, California, all over this country, is rising fairly rapidly.

00:21:09.000 People can't afford health care, can't afford college.

00:21:13.000 I don't think it's asking our employers too much to pay at least $15 an hour minimum wage.

00:21:19.000 Now, I'm glad you brought up Amazon.

00:21:21.000 One of the things that always freaks me out is when I find out that enormous corporations that make billions of dollars have tax loopholes where they literally pay no money.

00:21:30.000 How is that possible and how do you stop that?

00:21:33.000 Well, it's the same thing as the drug companies.

00:21:34.000 How is it possible that we pay ten times more for insulin in this country and for other drugs than in Canada or countries around the world?

00:21:44.000 And the answer is, it's power.

00:21:47.000 So what is the goal of major corporations in America?

00:21:52.000 It's to be deregulated as much as possible, so in some cases they can pollute our water, our air, our environment.

00:22:00.000 It's also not to pay any taxes.

00:22:02.000 Trump campaign, as you recall, he said, my tax plan is not going to benefit the wealthy people.

00:22:10.000 It's going to benefit working people.

00:22:11.000 Well, it turns out over 10 years, 83% of the benefit at the end of 10 years goes to the top 1%.

00:22:16.000 That's what these guys – I remember – I'm called the ranking member on the budget committee in the Senate.

00:22:24.000 And some guy came forward representing, I don't know, one of the big business organizations.

00:22:30.000 And this is their agenda.

00:22:32.000 Their agenda was to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and to do away with all corporate taxes.

00:22:38.000 So what you have right now, that's what greed is about.

00:22:41.000 They want it all.

00:22:42.000 So as you indicated, you have a company like Amazon, owned by Jeff Bezos, who happens to be the wealthiest guy in America, worth about $150 billion.

00:22:51.000 Amazon paid zero in federal income taxes.

00:22:54.000 And it's not just them.

00:22:55.000 Dozens of corporations paid nothing or very, very little.

00:22:58.000 And on top of all of that, you got these guys able to stash All over the world, trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, in Luxembourg, and other tax havens.

00:23:13.000 That is insane, and that has got to end.

00:23:16.000 Yeah.

00:23:17.000 How is it legal to do that?

00:23:18.000 Why is it legal?

00:23:20.000 Joe, it is legal because they make the laws.

00:23:23.000 Right.

00:23:23.000 All right?

00:23:24.000 You know, that is what – you're touching now on the heart and soul of the tragedy of American politics.

00:23:32.000 How does it happen that on issue after issue, the American people, the working class of this country, want something, nobody pays any attention to it, but billionaires want something, and it gets done.

00:23:44.000 And that has to do with a corrupt...

00:23:47.000 Political system.

00:23:48.000 So right now, if you are the Koch brothers or some multi-billionaire, you say to the leadership of the Republican Party, and in some cases to the Democratic Party, hey, guess what?

00:23:59.000 We're prepared to put hundreds of millions of dollars into your campaign.

00:24:02.000 Hundreds of millions of dollars coming from one or two people.

00:24:05.000 And here is my agenda.

00:24:07.000 I want tax breaks.

00:24:08.000 I want a trade system.

00:24:12.000 I want to be able to do more pollution, because I don't like all of this money I have to spend preventing pollution of the air or the water.

00:24:24.000 That's what I want you to do.

00:24:25.000 And by the way, I'm worried about the deficit, so you may as well cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

00:24:30.000 How many Americans actually believe That we should give tax breaks to billionaires and cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

00:24:38.000 Very few.

00:24:39.000 Talk to Mitch McConnell.

00:24:41.000 Get Mitch on the show.

00:24:42.000 That is exactly what he believes. 0.94

00:24:43.000 But that's ridiculous, right?

00:24:45.000 And it seems that if you just took away those tax breaks, the enormous amount of money that would come from those corporations having to pay their fair share would take care of a lot of the expenses of all these things that you're proposing.

00:24:59.000 Exactly.

00:25:01.000 Okay, let's talk about the education, because the idea of free education is a wonderful thing for people.

00:25:08.000 I mean, the idea that you get out of college and you're in debt in an insane amount, that you might have 10, 20 years where you have to pay it back.

00:25:19.000 And I know many people that are in that situation.

00:25:20.000 Joe, there are people who are getting their Social Security checks garnished right now.

00:25:25.000 It's not 10 or 20 years.

00:25:26.000 In some cases, it's literally a lifetime.

00:25:29.000 Now, a lot of that is – it's got to, in some way, be preventable by what we're talking about here.

00:25:36.000 Absolutely.

00:25:38.000 Is that how you would pay for it?

00:25:39.000 I'll tell you exactly how we would pay for it.

00:25:41.000 And we pay for – every idea that we have, we pay for it.

00:25:45.000 And we pay for it by understanding that today we have massive levels of income and wealth inequality.

00:25:50.000 And we have, in many cases, the wealthy and large corporations paying nothing or very little in taxes.

00:25:56.000 Here is the issue in terms of education.

00:25:59.000 40, 50 years ago, you were an average American working class person.

00:26:03.000 You graduated high school.

00:26:06.000 Especially if there was a union around, you can go out and get a job and make it into middle class.

00:26:10.000 You could own your own home.

00:26:12.000 You could send your kids to school.

00:26:13.000 You lived a pretty good life and made it into middle class.

00:26:17.000 Forty or fifty years later, there's an explosion of technology.

00:26:20.000 There's a growth in unfettered free trade.

00:26:23.000 And it is clear now that most people, to make it into the middle class, are going to need a higher education.

00:26:30.000 That's college or maybe it's technical training in order to become a skilled worker.

00:26:38.000 It is insane to me to deny working class people and lower income people the opportunity to get that education because the cost of college has soared.

00:26:48.000 So all that I say is that 100 plus years ago, the American people said that we should have free public education.

00:26:56.000 I went to a public school.

00:26:57.000 My parents didn't pay a nickel.

00:26:59.000 Went to kindergarten.

00:27:00.000 I went through the 12th grade.

00:27:01.000 Pretty good education in Brooklyn, New York.

00:27:03.000 All that I'm saying is the world has changed.

00:27:06.000 And a high school degree is not good enough anymore.

00:27:09.000 So expand that concept through college.

00:27:12.000 Now, guess what?

00:27:14.000 50 years ago, do you know how much the University of California, a very great university, cost in terms of tuition?

00:27:20.000 How much?

00:27:20.000 Virtually free.

00:27:22.000 What's it now?

00:27:23.000 I don't know, but it's pretty high.

00:27:25.000 It is high.

00:27:25.000 It's thousands and thousands of dollars.

00:27:27.000 So you had great universities like the University of California, City University of New York, state colleges all over this country, where tuition was virtually free.

00:27:36.000 And then what happened, for a variety of political reasons, states and the federal government started cutting back on higher education and put more and more burden on the student with higher and higher tuition, which is where we are today.

00:27:49.000 So all that I'm saying is in the year 2019, 2020, If our working class kids are going to go out and get the jobs that are out there, they need a higher education, which should be tuition-free. 1.00

00:28:03.000 In terms of the cancellation of debt, which is my view, you've got 45 million people who are dealing with debt.

00:28:11.000 I'll never forget this.

00:28:12.000 This is where it really hit me.

00:28:14.000 I was in Burlington, Vermont, and I had a meeting on an issue.

00:28:16.000 And a young woman comes up and she says, she's a doctor.

00:28:19.000 She graduated medical school.

00:28:21.000 She's very happy.

00:28:22.000 She's practicing in a community health center.

00:28:24.000 Loves what she's doing.

00:28:25.000 She says, Bernie, I've got to tell you, though, I am $300,000 in debt for having gone to medical school.

00:28:31.000 I couldn't believe it.

00:28:32.000 I was in Iowa, a young woman, $400,000 in debt.

00:28:36.000 This is not unusual for medical schools and dental schools.

00:28:40.000 And, you know, ordinary people, $50,000, $100,000 for going to college or getting a master's degree.

00:28:46.000 We promised these young people, we said, go to college.

00:28:49.000 Go out and get an education.

00:28:50.000 You'll get decent paying jobs.

00:28:51.000 Well, the answer is they have not been able to do that.

00:28:53.000 So what we have proposed in one piece of legislation or two, actually, is Is to make public colleges and universities tuition-free, cancel all student debt in this country.

00:29:03.000 That will cost $2.2 trillion, a lot of money, over a 10-year period.

00:29:07.000 We do this through a tax on Wall Street speculation, which will bring in $2.4 trillion.

00:29:14.000 We bailed out Wall Street 11 years ago.

00:29:17.000 And by the way, these are crooks on Wall Street who engaged in legal behavior.

00:29:21.000 Taxpayers, against my vote, bailed them out.

00:29:24.000 If we can bail out Wall Street, you know what?

00:29:26.000 We can cancel student debt and provide public colleges and universities tuition-free.

00:29:30.000 When you say a tax on Wall Street speculation, what exactly do you mean by that?

00:29:34.000 It will be a tax on every sale of a tax.

00:29:39.000 People buy and sell stocks and bonds all of the time.

00:29:43.000 We have a very modest tax on that.

00:29:44.000 And by the way, it will have an impact on speculation by cutting back on the high-frequency trading, which we now see.

00:29:51.000 So there's no current tax on this?

00:29:54.000 Correct.

00:29:54.000 So you would put a small amount and that would do the job?

00:29:58.000 That would raise more than enough money.

00:30:00.000 It's a very small tax.

00:30:02.000 When you say small, how much?

00:30:03.000 It depends on the nature of the transaction, but it's less than one half of one percent.

00:30:07.000 Really?

00:30:08.000 Yeah.

00:30:08.000 And that would cover?

00:30:09.000 Yeah, because the amount of stocks being sold.

00:30:12.000 And this is not, again, a new idea.

00:30:14.000 It's being done in countries all over the world.

00:30:18.000 Here's one of the darkest things about student loans, is that if you go bankrupt, it doesn't matter.

00:30:24.000 You still owe that.

00:30:25.000 And that's kind of crazy.

00:30:27.000 I mean, if you have a serious medical issue, if you're held up, whatever happens to you that's awful, you go bankrupt, most of those things are resolved, but not student loans.

00:30:38.000 Right.

00:30:38.000 I mean, again, this talks to the – and that has to do with bankruptcy law, which was passed against my vote.

00:30:47.000 And while you're on bankruptcy, and I should have mentioned this before, when you talk about the healthcare system, a half a million Americans every single year go bankrupt because of medical bills that they can't pay.

00:30:59.000 But you're right.

00:30:59.000 I talked to this guy in Nevada.

00:31:01.000 I'll never forget it.

00:31:02.000 The guy says, Bernie, you know, The guy's in his 50s.

00:31:06.000 And he said, you know, I've been paying off my student debt for years.

00:31:09.000 I'm going nowhere because the interest rates are high.

00:31:12.000 And I fear very much, which is the case, that they will start garnishing, taking away my Social Security checks, taking money away from me.

00:31:20.000 So people are carrying this burden.

00:31:22.000 The result is that they can't, in many cases, get married and have kids.

00:31:28.000 They certainly can't buy a home.

00:31:29.000 They can't buy a car.

00:31:30.000 They are really crushed.

00:31:32.000 By this debt.

00:31:33.000 And what was their crime?

00:31:34.000 What did they do?

00:31:35.000 They tried to get a higher education.

00:31:37.000 I think that's pretty crazy.

00:31:38.000 And a lot of them, when they do this higher education, they're 18 years old.

00:31:42.000 Imagine making a decision when your brain isn't even fully formed.

00:31:45.000 It's going to affect you for the rest of your life.

00:31:46.000 You got it.

00:31:47.000 Exactly right.

00:31:48.000 And you talk to these kids.

00:31:49.000 How much debt do you owe?

00:31:51.000 What kind of interest rates do you pay?

00:31:52.000 Gee, I really don't know.

00:31:53.000 They just told me to sign OBM. It's all right.

00:31:57.000 Now, right now, we are a week, not even a week out, just a few days away from two mass shootings in a row.

00:32:05.000 And whenever these things happen, there's...

00:32:10.000 All these people that want action, but nobody knows exactly what to do.

00:32:14.000 There's calls for gun control.

00:32:15.000 There's calls for mental health reform.

00:32:19.000 What, if anything, can be done to stop these things from happening?

00:32:24.000 Have you sat down and tried to come up with some sort of a solution?

00:32:29.000 And is there a solution?

00:32:31.000 Look, I would be lying to you if I told you I had a magical answer.

00:32:37.000 I don't.

00:32:40.000 And this is such a horrific situation.

00:32:42.000 We had a town meeting.

00:32:45.000 We were in Nevada, actually, in Las Vegas, when El Paso happened.

00:32:51.000 And we did a town meeting, and I said, let's take a moment of silence to remember the victims and pray for the survivors.

00:32:59.000 Literally, the next day, in another part of Las Vegas, I had to do it again.

00:33:04.000 And I said, I can't believe that just yesterday we did this, and I have to do it again.

00:33:09.000 This is – I don't know what the words – you know, my friend Beto O'Rourke would say.

00:33:14.000 You don't know what words – what can you say?

00:33:16.000 It happens again and again.

00:33:17.000 Who can imagine some lunatic walking into a school or a mall or just on a nightclub area and taking out an assault weapon and shooting down people?

00:33:28.000 And that we almost become to accept this as a normal part of American life is incredible, is just totally demoralizing.

00:33:38.000 All right, so here's what I think.

00:33:39.000 There's no magical answer, but let me tell you what I think.

00:33:43.000 First of all, this is the reality.

00:33:46.000 The reality is that today as we speak, there are approximately 400 million guns in America today.

00:33:52.000 We have more guns than we have people.

00:33:56.000 We have between 5 to 10 million assault weapons, and an assault weapon, as you know, is a military-style weapon designed to kill human beings kind of rapidly.

00:34:06.000 And then on top of that, we have, again, nothing to be proud of, but we have a number of mentally unstable people.

00:34:14.000 People, for whatever reason, are walking the streets, they're suicidal, they're homicidal.

00:34:19.000 That's the mix that we have.

00:34:21.000 I think the answer is, and I'm not the guy to invent all these ideas, but here's some of what we have to do.

00:34:26.000 First of all, if you want to own a gun in America, We have got to know that you are a stable person, and that means that we need to expand the background checks that currently exist.

00:34:46.000 Okay, so we've got to know, did you beat up your wife?

00:34:48.000 Have you committed crimes?

00:34:50.000 Et cetera, et cetera.

00:34:52.000 What is the state of your mental health?

00:34:54.000 Number two, we've got to make that universal.

00:34:57.000 Number two, right now, There is a background check if you walk into a gun shop, but you can buy guns in various states at a gun show, and you don't have to do any of that.

00:35:12.000 You and I go to a gun show, you sell me a gun, I don't have to do that.

00:35:17.000 Third of all, I can today legally walk into a gun show, pass the background check, and buy a dozen guns, walk out and sell them to criminal elements who will use them for bad things.

00:35:31.000 So I think those are issues that most Americans believe we have got to deal with, and we can.

00:35:38.000 Fourthly, I happen to believe, and I believe this for 30 years, that we should not be selling or distributing assault weapons in this country.

00:35:46.000 They are weapons of mass destruction in a sense.

00:35:49.000 They kill people rapidly as we saw.

00:35:51.000 And thank God, by the way, when we talk about both Dayton and El Paso, thank God, cops were there very, very quickly and did an incredible job.

00:35:58.000 So if that guy had walked into the nightclub, there could have been dozens and dozens more people killed within a few minutes' time.

00:36:07.000 I happen to believe, A, that we should not be selling or distributing assault weapons in this country.

00:36:14.000 That's my view.

00:36:15.000 Period.

00:36:17.000 So I believe in a ban on assault weapons.

00:36:19.000 And I think we have got to begin thinking about when we have 5 to 10 million assault weapons, which is more than the U.S. military has, we have to think about a strong licensing procedure in terms of who owns these assault weapons.

00:36:32.000 So that's some of There are many other things, but those are some of the ideas that are out there.

00:36:38.000 Now, the legal gun owners who are law-abiding citizens, who would never in a million years think about going around shooting people, but they love guns.

00:36:47.000 They hear this kind of stuff about banning assault rifles, banning assault weapons.

00:36:52.000 They don't even like the term assault weapons, right?

00:36:55.000 They like to refer to them as their individual names for whatever they are.

00:36:59.000 These people feel like this is an inexorable part of being an American, that you should be able to own a gun.

00:37:06.000 It's written into our Bill of Rights.

00:37:08.000 It's written into the way this country was founded.

00:37:13.000 It's the Second Amendment.

00:37:15.000 What do you say to those people that don't want to give up their guns and they want to protect themselves?

00:37:21.000 They feel like these guns are viable options to protect themselves from criminals.

00:37:28.000 I understand that.

00:37:29.000 And Joe, as you may know, I'm a senator from the state of Vermont.

00:37:32.000 And the state of Vermont is one of the most rural states in America.

00:37:35.000 Every fall, we've got whole thousands and thousands of people out in the woods hunting.

00:37:40.000 And it's something that's part of our tradition.

00:37:42.000 I believe in it.

00:37:42.000 I believe in the Second Amendment.

00:37:45.000 But all that I ask of the gun owners, and you're absolutely right, 99.9% of gun owners would never in a million billion years think of doing these horrible things.

00:37:54.000 But in the moment that we are living in, I think that we're all going to have to make some concessions to the reality.

00:38:13.000 I think?

00:38:23.000 You know, I wish I can say in the best of all possible worlds, yeah, you know, you can own any weapon you want and so forth and so on.

00:38:32.000 We're not living in the best of all possible worlds.

00:38:34.000 We're living in a world where we're shocked every day by horror.

00:38:38.000 I agree we are living in a terrible situation.

00:38:41.000 I mean, there's hundreds of mass shootings a year now, which is insane.

00:38:45.000 And if you look at the number in comparison to the rest of the world, it's crazy.

00:38:49.000 Like a big one in other countries, like three mass shootings in a year, we had more than 270. It's crazy.

00:38:56.000 But how would you implement something like this?

00:38:59.000 Well, the idea of banning assault weapons has been done.

00:39:03.000 In 1994, we banned assault weapons, I believe it was for 10 years.

00:39:10.000 That ban was undone by a Republican majority.

00:39:15.000 And it didn't, you know, I'm not suggesting, by the way, anything here that if you banned assault weapons tomorrow that it would radically change everything.

00:39:22.000 But we have got to do the best that we can do.

00:39:26.000 And again, I preface my remarks by telling you, I don't have a magical solution.

00:39:29.000 You've got hundreds of millions of guns out there.

00:39:32.000 You have people who should not be owning these guns, who get set off by God knows what, and do terrible things.

00:39:38.000 All we can do is the best that we can do.

00:39:41.000 But to say we can't do anything, I think is a real disservice to the American.

00:39:46.000 Now, I'll tell you something else that bothers me, you know, in addition to the horror of seeing people lying on the street dead, is what this is doing to the children of this country, and I think we underestimate that.

00:39:59.000 I have seven grandchildren, and for them and for kids all over this country, you're going to see the falls coming, kids coming back to school, you're going to see in schools all over America drills All right, this is what you do if somebody walks into the school.

00:40:13.000 All right, you're going to hide under here.

00:40:15.000 You go over there.

00:40:17.000 A couple of months ago, I was in Iowa.

00:40:20.000 This guy is about six foot two, big guy, probably a football player.

00:40:23.000 And he says, Senator Sanders, I got to tell you that the young people in my school are increasingly frightened, terrified about what could happen in the school.

00:40:33.000 Think about what this – the trauma, the trauma of what this gun violence is doing.

00:40:39.000 So I think we're all – as Americans, there ain't no easy answers here, but I think we're all going to have to come together and figure this one out and do the best that we can.

00:40:48.000 Now, would that mean forcibly – And removing these guns from people's homes?

00:40:54.000 I don't think you're going to have the FBI knocking on somebody's doors and taking them.

00:40:58.000 That's not what we do in America.

00:40:59.000 But if we have 400 million guns already out there, and they're building more every year, right now as we speak, gun manufacturers are making more guns.

00:41:08.000 This is happening right now.

00:41:10.000 So if those guns already exist, there's more than enough, how would you stop?

00:41:15.000 Well, again, I think, look, you know, I do think there should be a ban on assault weapons.

00:41:20.000 So that means that manufacturers would not be able to produce or sell those weapons.

00:41:24.000 To American citizens, but not to the military, obviously.

00:41:27.000 Right, obviously.

00:41:28.000 Okay.

00:41:29.000 So, you know, and your point is well taken.

00:41:32.000 If you've got 400 million guns out there, you know...

00:41:35.000 So I think there are approaches.

00:41:37.000 No one has any magical solution, but I've given you – I'll tell you something else that I didn't mention, and that is the role of gun manufacturers, is that if you are a gun manufacturer and you are selling a hell of a lot of guns to a gun store in an area which normally you would not think – I mean,

00:41:56.000 these guys know what cities buy, what towns buy, how many guns – And if suddenly there is a tremendous demand, you've got to be thinking, why is this gun store buying so many guns?

00:42:09.000 It doesn't reflect the population in the area.

00:42:11.000 You've got to deal with that issue where the gun owners have to take some responsibility.

00:42:15.000 Besides the guns...

00:42:17.000 The gun manufacturers, I'm sorry.

00:42:18.000 Besides the guns and the gun manufacturers, the other gigantic issue is mental health. 0.91

00:42:24.000 The only way any of this ever happens is someone has to be insanely mentally depraved.

00:42:29.000 That's the only way. 0.89

00:42:30.000 And many of them are medicated.

00:42:34.000 And many of them are on pharmaceutical drugs, and they have been since they were children, including amphetamines like Adderall and Prozac and all this different stuff that has varied effects on the human brain.

00:42:48.000 What could be done and what would you done to analyze this, to find out what the cause and effect are, and to try to figure out what role and how much these drugs are responsible?

00:43:00.000 Well, two things.

00:43:01.000 Let me respond first by saying it goes without saying that we have a mental health crisis in America, before we even talk about drugs.

00:43:09.000 And for whatever reason, you know, there are a whole lot of people, and the nature of our healthcare system, getting back to healthcare, is...

00:43:17.000 I just talked to a woman, literally last night, and we had a town meeting, and she said, this is unbelievable, she said...

00:43:30.000 Bernie, I was in Las Vegas when the terrible shooting took place, okay?

00:43:36.000 And now I am, and I can understand this perfectly, I'm seeing Dayton and I'm watching television in El Paso, and I'm getting a PTSD reaction, all right?

00:43:47.000 And that's totally, if you were in a place where people were shot down, and she said, I'm trying to get counseling.

00:43:52.000 I can't find it.

00:43:54.000 I remember a guy called up, a woman called up my office in Burlington, Vermont, and she said, I'm worried about my husband, my brother, what he might do to himself or somebody else.

00:44:08.000 We're looking for mental health counseling.

00:44:10.000 We can't find something that we can afford.

00:44:12.000 So we need above and beyond gun violence.

00:44:16.000 We need, and this is why I believe in Medicare for All, mental health is healthcare.

00:44:21.000 You break your arm, that's a health issue.

00:44:23.000 That's a medical issue.

00:44:24.000 Mental health is a medical issue.

00:44:27.000 And we have got to make mental health counseling available to all people in this country when they need it, not six months from now, at a price they can afford.

00:44:36.000 And under Medicare for All, it would be free.

00:44:39.000 So that's number one.

00:44:40.000 Number two, your point about studying the impact of drugs on people's behavior and possibly resulting in violence absolutely deserves to be studied.

00:44:51.000 We should be studying the impact of drugs.

00:44:53.000 In my view, this is a layman's view, you know, I'm not a psychiatrist.

00:44:58.000 I worry very much that we are over-medicating kids in schools.

00:45:04.000 You know, we have this deficit-deficient issue.

00:45:08.000 You know, kids are running around and they're active.

00:45:09.000 You know, when I was a kid, people used to run around and they were active.

00:45:12.000 You know, they weren't drugged up.

00:45:15.000 So I worry about that whole business.

00:45:16.000 But your point is well taken.

00:45:17.000 I think we need to study this issue and make sure that these drugs, in fact, are not causing kinds of reactions that we will regret later.

00:45:26.000 Now, on the subject of drugs, marijuana is obviously a big issue in this country, and we've seen many states make it recreational, including this one.

00:45:35.000 What do you think could be done, and what should be done to have this across the board, especially federally?

00:45:41.000 You know, there's a guy that I have on the podcast coming up soon, his name's John Norris, and he wrote a book on the cartels growing marijuana illegally all over this country and selling it, especially, particularly in California now, because it's a misdemeanor, because it's legal recreationally and selling it with all sorts of horrible pesticides on it all sorts of like very in fact deadly chemicals all of this because it's not federally legal because we can't have sanctioned licensed companies doing

00:46:11.000 an ethical job of growing something that any responsible law-abiding person should be able to consume Okay.

00:46:20.000 Let me say this.

00:46:22.000 When I ran for president for the Democratic nomination in 2016, I talked about a broken criminal justice system which ends up having, in the United States, more people in jail than any other country.

00:46:36.000 We have more people in jail than China does, which is a communist authoritarian country.

00:46:41.000 And what I called for then and I call for now is the legalization of marijuana in America.

00:46:50.000 Right now, you have a federal law.

00:46:52.000 It's called the Controlled Substance Act.

00:46:54.000 Here's heroin.

00:46:55.000 Here is marijuana.

00:46:57.000 They're at the same level.

00:46:58.000 That is insane.

00:46:59.000 Heroin is a killer drug.

00:47:00.000 You can argue the pluses and minuses of marijuana, but marijuana ain't heroin.

00:47:05.000 So we have to end that, and that's what I will do.

00:47:07.000 As president of the United States, I believe we can do that through executive order, and I will do that.

00:47:12.000 Second of all, what we have now is We're good to go.

00:47:33.000 Yeah.

00:47:33.000 And four years ago, people were getting arrested for doing that, right?

00:47:36.000 Their lives being destroyed.

00:47:37.000 Well, particularly in Nevada, there was life sentences given out in the 70s.

00:47:41.000 Can you believe that? 0.99

00:47:42.000 And now you have corporations selling the damn product that people went to jail for. 0.99

00:47:46.000 So, I think, ultimately, you know, we've got to legalize marijuana. 0.98

00:47:51.000 And what's good news, in a sense, is some communities, some cities, are expunging the records.

00:47:57.000 So, if you were arrested, have a criminal record for selling marijuana, that is being expunged, and that is the right thing to do.

00:48:04.000 You know, we can argue about the pluses and minuses.

00:48:06.000 I'm not a great fan of drugs.

00:48:08.000 Other people, you know, I smoked marijuana a couple of times, didn't do much for me.

00:48:12.000 Other people, I guess, have different impacts.

00:48:14.000 Just a couple times?

00:48:15.000 That's really true.

00:48:15.000 It didn't do much for you?

00:48:16.000 Yeah, it made me cough.

00:48:17.000 Where were you getting it?

00:48:18.000 I don't know.

00:48:19.000 I was in Vermont, northern Vermont.

00:48:20.000 Oh, that's the problem.

00:48:21.000 Maybe.

00:48:22.000 It'll do something for you.

00:48:23.000 Well, it made me cough a whole lot.

00:48:25.000 All right, but I gather other people have had different experiences, correct?

00:48:27.000 Oh, for sure.

00:48:28.000 Yeah, I certainly have.

00:48:31.000 The other problem is, of course, with illegal drugs comes, you get this horrible cycle, particularly in inner cities, where you have people that are incarcerated for illegal drugs.

00:48:45.000 Illegal drugs seem to be the only way out.

00:48:47.000 The hard drugs, when we're talking about cocaine and all these other drugs, how does one stop that?

00:48:53.000 And would you ever consider legalizing all drugs or decriminalizing all drugs?

00:48:59.000 Not at this point.

00:48:59.000 No, I wouldn't.

00:49:00.000 But you're touching on a real tragedy.

00:49:04.000 And when we talk about criminal justice in America, we have over 2 million people in jail.

00:49:11.000 They are disproportionately African-American, Latino, and Native American.

00:49:15.000 And here's what I think.

00:49:17.000 I think in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, what we have got to do, instead of building more jails and locking up more people, we really do have to invest in our young people, especially young people in distressed communities.

00:49:32.000 What does that mean?

00:49:34.000 If we can, and we can do this with the proper amount of resources, make sure the kids are not dropping out of school.

00:49:40.000 If you drop out of school today, you know, say you drop out in your second or third year of high school, you don't have an education, you don't have any job skills, What are you going to do with your life?

00:49:49.000 And the answer is you may well do drugs, you know, or you'll get in trouble, self-destructive activity or destructive activity and you're going to end up in jail.

00:49:57.000 It makes so much more sense from a humane perspective, protecting our people, as well as a financial situation.

00:50:04.000 We're spending $80 billion a year to invest in these kids.

00:50:07.000 What does it mean?

00:50:08.000 It means making sure they get the education that they need, paying attention, having good schools.

00:50:13.000 Making sure that they get the jobs that are out there, doing job training.

00:50:17.000 There was a principal in a school in southern Vermont.

00:50:20.000 I'll never forget what she said.

00:50:21.000 It was a working class school.

00:50:22.000 And she said, Bernie, I love these kids.

00:50:24.000 I am not going to let them drop out.

00:50:26.000 And she had a mentoring program, just watching the kids who are mostly at risk.

00:50:32.000 So that they would not end up going through the cracks and getting into trouble.

00:50:36.000 That's what we should be doing as a nation.

00:50:38.000 And when we do that, we invest in the kids, we get them jobs, we get them education, the likelihood of them falling into bad ways is significantly reduced.

00:50:47.000 All those things sound great.

00:50:48.000 The uncomfortable reality about drugs, though, is that when drugs are illegal, criminals sell them.

00:50:54.000 And there's obviously a need for drugs in terms of, not necessarily a need, but a demand for drugs.

00:50:59.000 There's a demand for drugs in this country that's absolutely fueling Mexican cartels and illegal drug runners inside this country.

00:51:07.000 I mean, there's a lot of that.

00:51:09.000 How do you curb that if drugs are illegal?

00:51:13.000 Well, no.

00:51:15.000 You're raising a deep question.

00:51:17.000 Yes.

00:51:17.000 All right.

00:51:18.000 So the question essentially that you're asking is, what is the cause of the opioid epidemic?

00:51:24.000 Yes?

00:51:24.000 That's one aspect of it.

00:51:26.000 But the opioid epidemic is interesting because there's so much of it that's coming legally.

00:51:30.000 Right.

00:51:31.000 That's not the drug cartels.

00:51:33.000 That's the pharmaceutical industry.

00:51:34.000 You're right.

00:51:34.000 But the heroin is illegal.

00:51:36.000 Yes.

00:51:37.000 All right.

00:51:37.000 Now you're asking, this is a very, very deep question, which we don't talk about terribly much.

00:51:44.000 Why is it that so many of our people are turning to drugs, to alcohol, by the way, and I don't mean to drink at night, but I mean serious alcohol problems, and tragically to suicide?

00:51:59.000 We now have, for the last three years, something that is ahistorical, never happened before in modern history, and that is our life expectancy is actually going down.

00:52:11.000 And this is hitting all over the country, but it's especially hitting rural areas.

00:52:15.000 And what the doctors are saying is that these are diseases of despair.

00:52:21.000 Despair.

00:52:22.000 So you're in West Virginia, you're in rural Ohio, or any place, Vermont, any place.

00:52:29.000 And the job you used to have, earning a decent living, is now in China.

00:52:34.000 Your kid can't afford to go to college.

00:52:36.000 Maybe you can't afford healthcare.

00:52:39.000 You've got nothing to look forward to.

00:52:42.000 Under that scenario, drugs become, alcohol becomes a way out, and the worst case is suicide.

00:52:51.000 So I think what we're talking about is why is this happening, often in rural areas, in urban as well.

00:52:59.000 And how can we reestablish hope and optimism in the American people?

00:53:06.000 And that gets back to a whole lot of other issues.

00:53:09.000 It means if people have health care as a right, that will certainly play a role in this thing.

00:53:14.000 They'll walk into the doctor when they need.

00:53:16.000 But it also means that people need decent jobs to pay them a living wage.

00:53:22.000 That means we have to rebuild rural America.

00:53:25.000 We have to rebuild the depressed communities In urban America, it means that we have to have a great educational system. 0.65

00:53:33.000 And people say, oh, that's great, Bernie.

00:53:35.000 That's utopian.

00:53:35.000 It is not utopian.

00:53:37.000 This is something that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world we can afford and we should be doing rather than creating a situation where Amazon pays zero in federal income taxes.

00:53:47.000 So to answer your question, this is a deep question.

00:53:49.000 And again, I'm not here to tell you I have all the answers.

00:53:52.000 But there are a lot of people out there who have basically given up hope.

00:53:55.000 And for those people, I guess drugs is the alternative.

00:53:59.000 So what you're saying essentially is that if we can do something to mitigate despair, then we'll do something to at least stop some of the demand for these illegal drugs.

00:54:09.000 I believe that is the case.

00:54:10.000 Look, if I am optimistic, if I'm excited about going to work tomorrow and I'm seeing my kid doing great in school, and when I get sick, I can go to the doctor's office and have a sense of community.

00:54:20.000 My downtown is not all boarded up because businesses have left.

00:54:24.000 But we have a community.

00:54:25.000 Yeah, the strong likelihood is there will be less diseases of despair and drugs than we currently see.

00:54:32.000 Now, when we're talking about impoverished communities and chronically, when you're talking about cities like Baltimore or parts of Chicago and Detroit that have just been in a terrible state of despair for long periods of time and it doesn't seem like there's a way out,

00:54:49.000 The people that are born there, the people that live there, they live in this state of despair.

00:54:55.000 What can be done to resolve all these terribly impoverished communities and bring them up to a standard where these kids that grow up there, they feel like there is an out, that they do have an opportunity?

00:55:08.000 And why is this not addressed?

00:55:10.000 When we talk about making America great, Wouldn't, like, fixing the worst parts of the country be the primary concern?

00:55:18.000 The less people that grow up in a terribly disadvantageous position from birth, wouldn't that be an important thing?

00:55:26.000 And what can you do to resolve that?

00:55:28.000 Well, Joe, I think you said it better than I can.

00:55:31.000 I think you're right.

00:55:32.000 When we talk about what it means to live in a great society, a great nation, a nation that we're proud of, I'm afraid there are some people who have incredible wealth and power who say, you know what's great?

00:55:44.000 Is that we're seeing a growth in the number of billionaires in America.

00:55:48.000 Isn't that terrific?

00:55:49.000 And we got one guy who's worth $155 billion.

00:55:52.000 How great.

00:55:53.000 Oh, by the way, we're building more nuclear weapons.

00:55:55.000 And we're spending $750 billion a year on the military.

00:56:00.000 Isn't that extraordinary?

00:56:01.000 And by the way, do you see the yacht that that billionaire has?

00:56:04.000 You know, it's three miles long.

00:56:06.000 Isn't that great?

00:56:07.000 Your point is that we have to, I think as I understand what you're saying, we have to redefine what being a great nation is about.

00:56:14.000 We are not a great nation when we have 40 million people living in poverty and in despair.

00:56:21.000 We're not a great nation when we have massive levels of income and wealth inequality, when 87 million people can't afford to go to a doctor today.

00:56:29.000 So, to answer your question, I think that as a nation, we have got to focus a great deal of attention on those distressed communities.

00:56:37.000 Often they're African American, often they're Latino, often they are rural white communities.

00:56:43.000 And that means making sure that the kids there get the quality education that they deserve, making sure that we're creating good paying jobs in those communities.

00:56:54.000 I voted against NAFTA, permanent normal trade relations with China and other trade agreements because I knew that those agreements were written by corporate America with the goal of shutting down plants in this country and moving abroad.

00:57:08.000 And the result of that has been the loss of millions of good-paying jobs and the complete destruction of communities all across this country, in the South and all across this country.

00:57:18.000 So we have got to rebuild those communities.

00:57:22.000 We have got to bring high-tech jobs, not just to Silicon Valley, but to rural America again.

00:57:29.000 I don't have magical answers, but the goal is we will not, under a Sanders administration, turn our backs on distressed communities.

00:57:36.000 We will rebuild those communities.

00:57:37.000 We will build the millions of units of affordable housing.

00:57:41.000 Now think about what it means to a community now where people are living in terrible housing or housing they cannot afford.

00:57:48.000 When we put young people to work rebuilding their own communities, will that become an indication of hope and optimism?

00:57:56.000 I think it will.

00:57:57.000 We're talking about so many deeply important issues and all of them that will be under the control or at least the direction of the one person who winds up becoming the President of the United States.

00:58:10.000 Is it an impossible job?

00:58:13.000 I mean, it seems like being the president, you are managing so many different aspects of our economy, our culture, our safety, our environment, international communication, and it's so in-depth.

00:58:30.000 How does one person do a job like that?

00:58:32.000 Well, one person doesn't do it.

00:58:33.000 And you certainly don't do it by tweeting every other day, major policy issues.

00:58:37.000 I think he tweets a lot more than every other day.

00:58:41.000 You know, what you do, and this is the way any sane president operates, is you need to be working with the smartest men and women from all walks of life who understand these issues.

00:58:53.000 Every issue we have touched on, Joe, is enormously complicated.

00:58:56.000 I can send out a 20-word tweet on it, but that doesn't solve it.

00:59:00.000 So, unlike Trump, we will bring together the best and most knowledgeable people in this country to address the housing crisis, to address the The issue of these diseases of despair.

00:59:14.000 We didn't even touch on climate change, you know, and then the future of the planet.

00:59:18.000 How do we lead the world in transforming our energy system and creating the kind of jobs that we need?

00:59:23.000 How do we revitalize American democracy so that instead of suppressing the vote, we're getting more young people involved in the political process?

00:59:30.000 So to answer your question, it is not a one-person job, and anyone who thinks it is is dead wrong.

00:59:34.000 You need the help of a very strong administration that knows the issues, that comes from the ranks of the working class.

00:59:41.000 And this is the promise I will make.

00:59:43.000 My administration, unlike Trump's, is not going to be filled with billionaires who's basically very often greedy type people.

00:59:51.000 It is going to be filled with the best people often from the working class itself, from the trade union movement, people who are going to help us create policies that work for workers and not just the billionaire class.

01:00:03.000 Now, we're getting to the end of your hour here.

01:00:05.000 So climate change is obviously an enormous issue for our country and for the world.

01:00:09.000 What could be done?

01:00:11.000 And what do you think you can do as president that can somehow or another slow down this process?

01:00:19.000 Well, first of all, we have to have a president who, unlike Trump, believes in science, and I do.

01:00:28.000 And what the scientists are telling us, as I mentioned earlier, is that we have fewer than 12 years to transform our energy system, or else there will be irreparable damage done, not only to our country, but to the world.

01:00:40.000 Now, climate change is not just an American issue.

01:00:43.000 So we could do tomorrow, do all the right things, but of China and Russia and India and the rest of Brazil.

01:00:48.000 And Africa does not do the right thing. 1.00

01:00:50.000 You know, we're not going to make the progress we need.

01:00:53.000 So, here is what we have to do in my view.

01:00:56.000 Number one, we have to tell the fossil fuel industry that their short-term profits, and they make a whole lot of money, their short-term profits are not more important than the future of this planet.

01:01:09.000 I don't think that's a hard sell to make.

01:01:11.000 You cannot keep producing a product which is destroying the planet in the United States and around the world.

01:01:17.000 So by saying that, you're saying we would have to move consciously away from fossil fuels?

01:01:22.000 Absolutely.

01:01:22.000 No ifs, buts, and maybes.

01:01:24.000 And if we do that, how do you tell the fossil fuel companies?

01:01:27.000 Do you tell them you can't sell fossil fuels anymore?

01:01:30.000 There are a variety of ways to do that, but that is the bottom line.

01:01:33.000 And by the way, in the midst of that, we do what we call is a just transition.

01:01:42.000 The guy out on the oil rig today simply wants to feed his family.

01:01:46.000 And the coal miners today want to feed their families. 1.00

01:01:49.000 And we're not going to leave them.

01:01:50.000 I'm a pro-worker.

01:01:51.000 I have probably the strongest pro-worker record of any member of the Congress.

01:01:55.000 So it is not my intention to throw these guys out on the – and women – out on the street and ignore the pain that they will go through.

01:02:01.000 We are proposing billions of dollars to rebuild those communities and make sure that those guys and women get new jobs.

01:02:09.000 So we're not just discarding people in the fossil fuel industry.

01:02:12.000 But ultimately, the product that they are producing, which is now carbon emissions, is destroying the planet.

01:02:17.000 So we have to move away from fossil fuel in a very bold way into energy efficiency.

01:02:25.000 Right now, in my own state of Vermont and all over this country, there are buildings which are incredibly wasteful.

01:02:32.000 We don't have the windows, we don't have the insulation, we don't have the roofing, the doors that we need to keep the buildings warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

01:02:42.000 And we can create just an incredible number of jobs just retrofitting our buildings.

01:02:48.000 Second of all, we need to move very aggressively.

01:02:52.000 To sustainable energies like wind and solar in California, you're doing a good job with wind.

01:02:57.000 Iowa's doing a good job.

01:02:58.000 Texas doing a good job.

01:02:59.000 We've got to do much more.

01:03:01.000 Solar, there is incredible potential out there.

01:03:04.000 Prices of solar has dropped in recent years.

01:03:07.000 And we have got to not only transform the energy system in our own country, we've got to lead the world in working with Russia and China.

01:03:14.000 Because in this issue, we are in it together.

01:03:17.000 And here's my dream, and this may be a utopian dream.

01:03:21.000 The world right now is spending a trillion and a half dollars on weapons of destruction designed to kill each other.

01:03:26.000 And maybe, just maybe, if we had a kind of leader, and I hope to be that leader, who says to the world, instead of spending a trillion and a half dollars killing each other, maybe we'll use those resources to transform the global energy system and save the planet for our kids and our grandchildren.

01:03:41.000 That's the goal that I have.

01:03:42.000 Well, these ideas sound great, but in the competitive environment of global politics, how would you convince Russia or China or any of these countries to do something that would put them in some sort of a competitive disadvantage?

01:03:54.000 Well, and the answer is, Joe, if we do not do that in 50, 100 years, everybody's going to be a terrible disadvantage.

01:04:02.000 And look, I'm not telling you that tomorrow it's going to happen.

01:04:06.000 But you've got to make the case.

01:04:08.000 These people, you know, Putin is a dictator. 0.95

01:04:10.000 I dislike him intensely. 0.76

01:04:12.000 You know, Xi and China, very authoritarian, so forth and so forth.

01:04:14.000 But they're not crazy people.

01:04:16.000 And presumably they have concern about their kids and their grandchildren.

01:04:19.000 This is a planet under siege.

01:04:22.000 You know, I don't want to become a science fiction.

01:04:23.000 You've all seen the movies, the media, racing toward Earth.

01:04:26.000 We're going to blow up the Earth.

01:04:27.000 What do we do?

01:04:28.000 Well, we've got to get together.

01:04:29.000 This is, in a sense, what that is about.

01:04:31.000 You know what I think about?

01:04:32.000 In 1941, after Pearl Harbor, we were faced with a war in the East with China, a war in the West in Europe with Hitler.

01:04:45.000 Within two years, the United States had transformed its economy to address and win the war, basically in two or three years, by re-industrializing America.

01:04:53.000 We can do it.

01:04:54.000 We can lead the world.

01:04:55.000 That's what we have to do.

01:04:57.000 So, in your eyes, we have to look at the economy almost as if the same kind of threat, or excuse me, the environment.

01:05:03.000 It's the same kind of threat as Nazi Germany, an act together. 0.90

01:05:07.000 Look, if you asked the Defense Department, you asked the CIA, you asked the defense people all over the world, tell us what the great national security threat is.

01:05:13.000 You know what it is?

01:05:14.000 It is climate change.

01:05:15.000 There's a lot of people, though, that are skeptical of this.

01:05:17.000 How would you convince them?

01:05:18.000 I mean, this is a big part of the problem, right?

01:05:20.000 There's a narrative that you hear from a lot of people that, oh, you know, climate change is not a proven science, and climate change is a hoax.

01:05:28.000 I mean, this is something that's repeated over and over again, and I'm sure some of it has to do with lobbyists and some of it has to do with merchants of doubt that go out there and seed the world with disinformation to try to increase their profits and continue the practices that they're currently enjoying.

01:05:45.000 You know, Joe, when I'm thinking back, and I don't know if all of you listeners can remember this because I'm older than most, but I can remember tobacco ads, cigarette ads on television.

01:05:55.000 Remember?

01:05:55.000 Yes.

01:05:56.000 Doc, the guy dressed in a white frock, smoking away.

01:05:59.000 This is a great cigarette.

01:06:00.000 It'll improve your health.

01:06:01.000 They lied.

01:06:01.000 The tobacco industry knew exactly what was going on.

01:06:04.000 And the fossil fuel industry is lying right now. 1.00

01:06:06.000 And the President of the United States is either too stupid to understand what the scientists are telling us, or he is lying as well. 1.00

01:06:14.000 Look, I am not the scientist. 1.00

01:06:16.000 This is not my idea.

01:06:17.000 I listen to the scientist.

01:06:19.000 The debate is long over.

01:06:21.000 Climate change is real.

01:06:23.000 My God, look at what's happening around the world.

01:06:25.000 July was, I think, the warmest July or warmest month in the modern history of the world.

01:06:32.000 The Arctic ice is melting.

01:06:35.000 Heat waves in Europe.

01:06:36.000 Just look out the window at what's going on.

01:06:40.000 So, this is not Bernie Sanders talking.

01:06:43.000 This is the scientific community.

01:06:45.000 Climate change is real.

01:06:48.000 It will only get worse if we do not act boldly to cut carbon emissions.

01:06:54.000 Well, we just did an hour, sir, so I'm going to let you go because I know you've got very important things to do.

01:06:59.000 One last question.

01:07:00.000 If you got into the office and you found out something about aliens, if you found out something about UFOs, would you let us know?

01:07:09.000 Well, I'll tell you, my wife would demand that I let you know. 0.99

01:07:12.000 Is your wife a UFO nut? 0.97

01:07:14.000 No, she's not a UFO nut. 0.96

01:07:15.000 Bernie, what is going on?

01:07:17.000 Do you have any access to records?

01:07:18.000 You don't have any access?

01:07:19.000 I don't.

01:07:20.000 Honestly, I don't.

01:07:21.000 Okay.

01:07:21.000 You let us know, though?

01:07:22.000 All right.

01:07:23.000 I'll be on the show.

01:07:23.000 We'll announce it on the show.

01:07:24.000 Please.

01:07:25.000 Please do.

01:07:26.000 Thank you, sir.

01:07:27.000 I appreciate your time.

01:07:27.000 Joe, thank you very much.

01:07:28.000 Thank you very much.

The Joe Rogan Experience - August 05, 2019

Joe Rogan Experience #1330 - Bernie Sanders

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