This Past Weekend with Theo Von - #635 - Sen. Bernie Sanders

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00:00:39.180 Today's guest is a senator from the state of Vermont. Before that, he was a congressman.

00:00:45.200 He was a mayor. He's a mittened meme, actually. I'm thankful for his return to the show. Today's

00:00:53.140 guest is Senator Bernie Sanders.

00:01:12.700 You know, this is an historic hotel.

00:01:16.020 Oh, yeah. Leonard Cohen used to spend time in here.

00:01:19.080 Yeah. My mom used to play Leonard Cohen for us when we were kids. She liked him,

00:01:24.160 and so she would play his, uh, When the Walls Came Down. Remember that?

00:01:29.580 Yeah. And the other here is Hallelujah.

00:01:32.720 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:01:35.080 There's a, uh, here in New York City, there is a, uh, yeah. It's called the Youth Choir of New York City.

00:01:43.400 Does that ring any bells? Mm-mm. It's kids. Pull them up. The Youth Choir of New York City,

00:01:49.100 is that it? Yeah, it's beautiful. And, uh, among other things, they do a beautiful,

00:01:53.420 beautiful rendition of, uh, Cohen's Hallelujah, which I love very much.

00:01:59.160 Yeah, I haven't been to see them. I would like to go check them out, though. Do they perform pretty often?

00:02:03.100 Mm-hmm. What's beautiful about it is the kids from the city, often working-class kids.

00:02:08.280 It's, the guy does a fantastic job, and the quality is really wonderful. And we're trying to do something in,

00:02:14.260 there it is. God, you can't say a word here. It's up in, there it is. Those are the kids. And beautiful.

00:02:20.240 And, uh, wonderful. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's nice. No, I haven't, I haven't gone to see that. What did I go?

00:02:27.380 I went to see a Knicks game. They won a championship in 53 years. Right? I didn't even realize that.

00:02:33.460 Well, I'm done. He's a mayor. That'll change. Yeah, there we go, huh? That's what, hey,

00:02:37.140 we'll start maybe getting some more foreign players. Hey, they got some good guys at the

00:02:41.560 Eurostep, you know, changed a lot of things. Um, I saw that you were out there on the, uh, 0.94

00:02:46.060 on the nurses picket line, the New York nurses. Yep. Yeah. That's awesome. We went the other day

00:02:50.280 too. We had a great time. Oh, wow. That's a nice crowd. Jesus. That's when you were,

00:02:54.020 that was there. Was that? Oh, that's me today. There I am. That's you this morning. Who's that

00:02:56.900 handsome guy in the brown coat? Oh, that's me. All right. Who's that kid with him? Oh, that's the mayor.

00:03:02.300 Oh yeah. That's Zoran, huh? Yeah. Um, yeah, there we were. We went out there the other day. We had a

00:03:08.320 good time. We stayed for a few hours, walked around, shook some bells, you know? Great. Got

00:03:12.540 out there. My sister's a nurse. My sister's a nurse. Where is she a nurse? She's a nurse down in

00:03:17.540 Louisiana. Good. But I figured that if, you know, things start here in New York, a lot of big things

00:03:21.240 start here. Let me just say something. I really appreciate the work you do and other podcasters do.

00:03:26.240 This is one of the technological revolutions that is really good. You know, sometimes I go on TV and

00:03:32.420 I'm asked to deal with an issue in seven seconds. I can't deal with it. You can't deal with it. Right?

00:03:36.960 Yeah. Takes a little bit of time. So thank you for what you're doing.

00:03:39.740 Oh, well, I appreciate that. Um, yeah, we're trying to learn as we go too, and it changes a lot,

00:03:44.740 you know, but, um, were you at Mount Sinai? Which one did you go?

00:03:49.160 Mount Sinai. Yeah. That's where we went. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I tell you,

00:03:52.280 I was really proud to go there and be alongside, uh, Mayor Zoran Mamdani. You know, I'm the former

00:03:59.080 chairman of the Health Education Labor Committee. And, uh, I'll tell you, Theo, I have met with

00:04:05.000 nurses all over this country. I love nurses. Uh, it's no great secret that our healthcare system 0.66

00:04:10.500 is broken. Everybody knows that. And the people who are keeping it going are in fact the nurses.

00:04:16.560 Uh, you know, they're with you when babies are born. They're with you when you die. They're with

00:04:20.900 the in-between. They're at your bedside. They're the backbone of the healthcare system. And I love

00:04:24.860 them. And I'll tell you something, time and time again, nurses would come into my office

00:04:29.320 and they'd start talking and suddenly they'd start crying. And you know what they were crying about?

00:04:34.300 They were crying about the fact that they were unable to do the jobs, to do the work that they

00:04:40.300 were trained and wanted to do, that they didn't have the number of nurses they need, the staffing ratios

00:04:45.820 that they needed. They broke down. Uh, and I was just a couple of years ago, not the symbol of

00:04:51.840 what's going on in New York city right now in New Brunswick, New Jersey. These nurses went on strike. 1.00

00:04:57.500 You know why they went on strike? Because they needed help to provide better patient care. It

00:05:02.220 wasn't even about money. Right. They're just saying, Hey, we can't, I can't even be a nurse. This is my

00:05:05.920 calling in the world. And I'm, I can't even do it to a decent potential. Exactly. And it's tough

00:05:11.100 enough. We talked last night, uh, we talked last time about, um, patients being stressed to the

00:05:15.060 gills, not only dealing with their, with their physical ailments, but having to deal with the

00:05:19.740 stress of, um, uh, begging for insurance companies to support just all of that. And now you're going

00:05:25.560 to put the nurses under the same stress. Exactly. It's pathetic. And, and I'm sure, you know,

00:05:31.640 this, the CEOs there are these big, huge house. One guy is making 26 million a year. Another guy,

00:05:38.240 I think it's making 16 million. I think I'm making five. They're bringing in all these

00:05:41.600 traveling nurses, spending hundreds of millions of dollars rather than sitting down and negotiating 0.98

00:05:46.640 a decent contract with these dedicated nurses. So there they are. You got them up there.

00:05:50.260 Yep. And I'm grateful. I want to just mention these wonderful CEOs by name today, just so,

00:05:54.680 because look, it's a, it's time where we put a name with people who are making certain choices.

00:05:58.640 And so we have Brendan Carr. Uh, that's, I know he's over at Mount Sinai, Brian Donnelly. There he is.

00:06:04.860 Look at that big smile. I'd be smiling too, if I just made $15 million this year. I mean, that's

00:06:09.520 Philip O. Ozua, who looks like a guess who character and Stephen Corwin from Monopoly. I don't know

00:06:17.160 if that's alleged. Uh, these are the CEOs current. And I think one is just leaving the, the, one of his

00:06:22.820 posts, um, who are, who these are the, these are who nurses are asking for help from. Is that right?

00:06:29.800 And just to be clear, Bernie, what are the nurses asking for what they're asking for what they call

00:06:34.460 safe patient nurse patient ratios. That means if you're a nurse on duty and you have too many

00:06:41.200 patients to take care of, you can't do your job. A patient calls out, needs your help. You can't get

00:06:47.800 there. So they want more staffing to be able to provide the quality, uh, care that patients deserve.

00:06:54.980 Mm-hmm. And I know in addition to that, I think they were, they wanted healthcare benefits not to

00:06:59.400 be cut. Right. For themselves. Right. Which is pretty, if you think that nurses, nurses can't get 1.00

00:07:06.840 healthcare, they can't be sure that they're going to have healthcare. They're working with the sick.

00:07:13.560 We can't say, Hey, we're going to do our best to make sure you don't get sick.

00:07:17.620 That's pretty crazy. And the other thing they worry about, and I hope we can discuss this a little

00:07:21.680 bit as AI and robotics. They've raised that issue as well. Have they really? Yeah. And there was a

00:07:27.380 Dr. Oz, who's head of CMS in Washington right now, was talking the other day. Uh, let me get it

00:07:33.900 straight. I think it was Alabama, rural Alabama where they're weak on the number of, uh, obstetricians

00:07:39.880 that they have. And he was proudly talking about how they have robots now who are providing examinations

00:07:46.000 for pregnant women. Yeah. And who's controlling those robots? It's not some pervert at his house,

00:07:50.880 huh? Well, but the point is, if you're a patient, do you really want a robot examining you? Right.

00:07:56.700 So, I mean, I think all of this, Theo, adds up to the fact, and I'll tell you, I've been all over the

00:08:02.340 country and wherever I go, I talk about this, whether you're conservative, you're moderate,

00:08:06.700 you're progressive, you understand the healthcare system is broken today. Yeah. We are spending,

00:08:11.600 this is insane. Do you know how much we spend per capita at everything else, right? Medicaid,

00:08:16.780 Medicare, what you pay out of your own pocket. How much do we spend per person on healthcare in

00:08:21.160 the United States of America? You know, take a wild and crazy guess.

00:08:27.920 Per year? No, per person. Oh, per person. Okay. $15,000 per person. Okay. So a family of four

00:08:34.700 spends theoretically $60,000. Oh, wow. That is double what any other country on earth is spending.

00:08:41.040 You got it? Yeah. You would think that if we are spending, you know, if I buy a $100,000 car,

00:08:47.140 you buy a $50,000 car, my car should be a little bit better than your car, right? Right. And yet,

00:08:52.220 despite all of those expenditures, our system is worse than others. We're the only major country

00:08:58.080 not to guarantee healthcare to all people. But it's because there's these kind of like darker 1.00

00:09:01.580 agreements between hospitals and insurance companies, right? And the cost of drugs. Yeah. It has to do

00:09:08.300 essentially. Look, in this day and age, running a healthcare system is very difficult. Technology

00:09:14.800 changes. It ain't easy. I admit that. But what is the goal of a rational healthcare system? It is to

00:09:21.340 say, first of all, to answer the fundamental question, is healthcare a human right? What do you

00:09:26.380 think? Should everybody, regardless of income, get healthcare? I believe that based on how much

00:09:33.440 money our country has, I think it's wrong not to provide that to people because we waste it in so

00:09:41.820 many other ways. Okay. Good point. So the issue here is why is the wealthiest nation on earth,

00:09:48.280 the United States of America, the only major country not to guarantee healthcare to all people?

00:09:53.580 Okay. That to me is a fundamental issue. So today, despite spending so much money, 85 million Americans

00:10:02.020 are uninsured or underinsured. And if Trump gets his way and throws another 15 million people off of

00:10:08.500 Medicaid, raise that number to roughly 100 million. Okay. There are estimates out there that when you

00:10:15.200 have that many people, uninsured, no insurance, and underinsured means high deductibles, right?

00:10:20.400 So if you've got a high deductible, you may be insured. I've talked to people, I suspect you

00:10:25.460 have, their deductibles, $10,000, $15,000 a year, right? So if you don't have any money,

00:10:30.440 what the hell, how do you go to the doctor? Yeah. Yeah. So you add all that together,

00:10:34.780 people get sick, they can't go to the doctor. Some 50,000, 60,000 people die a year in America

00:10:39.320 unnecessarily because they don't get to a doctor on time. That is pretty insane. So in my view,

00:10:45.020 I push very hard to introduce the legislation, what we call Medicare for all, expanding Medicare to cover

00:10:50.040 every man, woman, and child without out-of-pocket expenses. We could do that without spending to

00:10:54.620 your point, not a nickel more than we're currently spending. Yeah. How can we get that move forward

00:10:59.560 though? Why is this, why does this just continue to be this thing? You know, why does it continue to

00:11:06.160 feel like, like nobody really wants to take care of us? You know? Ah, now you're getting into another

00:11:15.000 issue. Yeah. All right. You want to go there? I mean, yeah, I think we can go to a couple of these

00:11:19.100 places. All right, let's do it. All right. Look, in one respect, the healthcare system

00:11:25.720 is working extremely well. Not for ordinary people, not for you, not for me. It is working

00:11:32.340 very well for the insurance companies who make zillions of dollars in profit, the drug companies

00:11:37.240 who charge us the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. And that's the function

00:11:40.740 of the current healthcare system. Right. Okay. So again, you know, running a healthcare system,

00:11:45.280 whether it's in Canada, Europe, wherever it is, it ain't easy and they all make mistakes

00:11:49.260 and they all have problems. But if your goal is, if you and I sit down and say, okay, how

00:11:54.140 do we provide a healthcare to all people? And how do we do it in a cost effective way? All

00:11:58.720 right. Will we come up with a perfect system? No, but that's our goal. Right. But if we sit

00:12:04.040 here and say, okay, hmm, how can we charge the highest prices in the world for prescription

00:12:08.900 drugs and make $38 billion next year? Yeah. How can we deny people the insurance that they

00:12:15.020 paid for? Right. The benefits that they pay for. That's a whole other scam. And that's

00:12:20.140 the scam we're working on. Yeah. It is an effort to make huge profits for the drug companies

00:12:24.000 and the insurance companies. And that's why we've got to end this broken system. And again,

00:12:28.540 I will tell you, I've been all over this country. Nobody or very few people think this healthcare

00:12:33.680 system is working. We got to expand Medicare over a four year period to cover every man,

00:12:38.260 woman and child. But is there a real way to get there? Yeah, there is. Look, it's the

00:12:45.580 goal is, and then that takes us to another area. You know, you ask the question, why,

00:12:51.820 why are we, you know, perhaps the only country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all

00:12:55.520 people? Why have the Canadian, you are in Canada right now, I live 50 miles away from 1.00

00:12:59.380 the border there. You get seriously ill, you're in the hospital for a month. You know what the

00:13:03.140 bill is when you come out? Zero. Yeah. Okay. And they spend half as much per percent

00:13:08.240 on healthcare. And they have good posture too. You've been over there? Yeah. Sure.

00:13:11.560 Of course I've been. So the answer has a lot to do with who controls the United States

00:13:18.620 and a corrupt campaign finance system. All right. So if I'm the insurance companies and

00:13:24.380 if I'm the drug companies and you're running around and you're campaigning and say, I'm

00:13:28.980 going to cut, as I do, we're going to cut prescription drug costs in half. We're going

00:13:33.420 to guarantee healthcare to all people. What are you going to do? You're going to spend

00:13:37.140 a whole lot of money on candidates to defeat me, right? So you've got a corrupt campaign

00:13:42.320 finance system in which billionaires in both political parties, by the way, I think Republicans

00:13:47.180 now more than Democrats, but both parties spend huge amounts of money. Elon Musk, the richest

00:13:52.280 guy on earth, spent some $270 million to elect Donald Trump president. So, you know, Musk has

00:13:59.580 his own agenda. He wants Trump president. Others, billionaires have their agenda. That's

00:14:05.020 called a corrupt system. All right. What democracy, in my view, and you can argue with me if you

00:14:09.560 want, is you and I, you're running for office. You want to run against me? Good. What are

00:14:14.760 your ideas? Take them to the people. People like your ideas better than me? You're going

00:14:18.580 to win. All right. It's not me going out, raising money, billions of millions of dollars

00:14:23.420 to defeat you, to lie about you, to put ugly 30 second ads on the air, right?

00:14:27.240 Right. Okay. That's what democracy is. A real debate

00:14:29.780 on the issues. Yeah. All right. Disagree with me. So what? It's called democracy,

00:14:33.120 right? Okay. But increasingly, what politics in America is about are super PACs, you know,

00:14:41.320 where if you're a billionaire, you can put, that's what Musk does, hundreds of millions

00:14:45.820 of dollars. And again, it's not just Musk. Democratic billionaires do the same.

00:14:49.580 Oh, yeah. There's the Koch brothers over the years. There's the Adelsons. There's all these

00:14:54.100 different huge, just big pockets that are influencing things. Absolutely. Yeah.

00:14:57.760 A multi-billion. So when these guys control the political process, you're not going to

00:15:02.880 have a government that works for ordinary people. And it's not just healthcare. It's many,

00:15:07.920 many other issues. So to my mind, by the way, when we talk about bringing about the necessary

00:15:12.300 changes this country needs, our campaign finance reform and doing away with Citizens United,

00:15:19.160 that terrible Supreme Court decision, top of the list.

00:15:21.480 Citizens United bring that decision up.

00:15:23.400 Citizens United was the Supreme Court decision that said, you have, you're a billionaire. Okay,

00:15:28.580 you got it? You have the freedom of speech. First Amendment to say anything you want about

00:15:35.280 Bernie Sanders. You want to put ads on the air. You can spend zillions of dollars, freedom of speech.

00:15:41.000 And that's what Citizens United said. And obviously that undermines democracy because it allows

00:15:47.320 billionaires the right to buy elections. And can we bring this back to a vote? Like,

00:15:51.780 will Mike Johnson bring this back to a vote?

00:15:54.340 No, he likes Citizens United because it works very well for those guys. And I got to tell you,

00:15:58.440 some Democrats like it too. But I think the American people, you go out and you talk to,

00:16:03.120 again, people all across the political spectrum, they understand you're not a democracy when

00:16:07.720 billionaires buy elections.

00:16:08.740 Yeah, well, here's the thing. It doesn't even feel like either one of these parties works for

00:16:13.920 anybody anymore. Like, if anything, in the past few years, it's really started to feel like,

00:16:19.260 oh, all these guys are working for somebody else. And we're just this other group of people down

00:16:25.000 here. Because you have, like, there are politicians online that are yelling at voters for support about

00:16:29.720 stuff. It's like, we voted for you. Like, yell upwards. You know, like, it just, I don't know.

00:16:36.700 It just, yeah, it feels like a total dead end now. It just feels like, um, it feels like most

00:16:41.760 people just want to be elected now so they can, uh, make a profit somehow themselves. It almost

00:16:46.880 feels like a, a business venture if you want to be a politician.

00:16:50.300 I wouldn't frame it in that way. I would, you know, frame it.

00:16:52.500 It feels like as a regular person or that, sorry, that's how it seems a lot of times.

00:16:56.480 Okay. Okay. It's, I would say it's kind of cool to be a congressman or a senator.

00:17:00.680 Oh, that's super cool.

00:17:01.660 Get your name in the paper. You get on nice shows like this one and all that stuff.

00:17:04.620 Uh, and you have a certain amount of power. Yeah. I mean, that's real. Uh, and you associate with

00:17:10.720 the rich and the famous and that's cool, I guess. Uh, but you know, that speaks to where we are as a

00:17:16.520 nation today. And here's, I think maybe the major point that I want to make. You're living in the

00:17:21.960 richest country in the history of the world. Theoretically, at least that should mean that all

00:17:28.200 of our people have a decent standard of living, right? We should not have people a few blocks from

00:17:31.920 here sleeping out on the street. We should not have people unable to afford healthcare, kids unable to

00:17:37.580 afford to go to college. Uh, people literally unable to feed their families. And yet in America

00:17:45.400 today, and I know this is really an astounding fact, 60% of our people, Theo, are living paycheck to

00:17:52.100 paycheck. And I grew up in a family, I don't know your background, but I grew up in a family that lived

00:17:56.960 paycheck to paycheck. Oh yeah. I knew exactly how much money we had, but no, I knew what we had left

00:18:01.980 at the end of each week and it was in mom's wallet, you know? Yeah. All right. And so the simple

00:18:07.620 question that we have to ask ourselves is how do we feel? And you know, again, you can disagree with

00:18:12.460 me. You're living in a society today where we have more income and wealth inequality than we've ever had

00:18:18.980 in the history of this country. All right. You got the top 1% doing phenomenally well, owning more wealth

00:18:25.140 than the bottom 93%. You got one man, Mr. Musk, one man owning more wealth than the bottom 52% of

00:18:35.420 American households. What do you think? Well, I think it's tough. I think there's two ways to look

00:18:41.320 at it. Well, I think, I think in a bigger scope for me, you have, yes, you have these billionaires.

00:18:46.400 You have these guys that have all of this wealth. It does feel unfair. They used to say, well,

00:18:50.400 just because one person has more money doesn't mean that other people have less money.

00:18:54.180 But I don't just visually, it doesn't even start to seem like that's the truth, right? Optically,

00:18:59.100 for me, it doesn't seem like that's the truth. Do I think there should be a cap on how much money

00:19:03.400 people could have? I do think that there should be. To me, in my heart, it doesn't feel like people

00:19:07.740 need so much money and so much control. That's the point. I think most people think,

00:19:12.440 and I believe, look, you go out, you're doing it. I mean, you start a business, you're making money,

00:19:16.320 right? Congratulations. We appreciate that. You make money. Great.

00:19:19.640 Do you really need hundreds of billions of dollars? No. Really? No.

00:19:25.560 At that point, you know, these guys, whether it's Zuckerberg or whether it's Bezos, you know,

00:19:31.380 they own their islands and their jet planes and their spaceships and all this crap.

00:19:35.440 Bunkers. 1.00

00:19:36.140 Right. Exactly. All right. Anyhow, so I don't begrudge people. Come up with a great idea,

00:19:40.980 work hard, make money. God bless you, you know? But you don't need billions and billions

00:19:45.640 of dollars when people are struggling to put food on the table or afford healthcare.

00:19:50.680 So that's one of the issues that concerns me right now. When I talk about fighting oligarchy,

00:19:55.420 you know, I was on a tour.

00:19:56.420 Oh yeah, I know you had a tour with AOC. You guys just, how many cities did you go to?

00:20:00.120 We have been now, I was in New Jersey last night. It's the 24th state that I've been in. I think

00:20:04.460 we've done 35 events. Well over 300,000 people have come out. And, you know, I, and I got to tell you,

00:20:10.300 I've been to conservative areas. People of this country are not happy about a situation in which

00:20:17.780 so few people, I mean, really a handful of people have such enormous political and economic power.

00:20:25.820 Yeah.

00:20:26.280 Okay. That's not what America is supposed to be about. You got rich and you got poor, fine,

00:20:30.620 but not so few having so much power over the economy and power over our political systems.

00:20:36.780 Well, here's what I would think. So, but I wonder if, I don't know if, like we always say let's tax

00:20:41.480 these people, right? That's what, that's a term a lot of people use. We need to tax them more. 1.00

00:20:45.960 And maybe so, right? But sometimes with billionaires, I at least look at billionaires

00:20:50.600 as like people that are create or more often than not creating jobs, creating environments where

00:20:57.660 other people have the ability to make money. Like you have like Larry Ellison. You have a lot of

00:21:03.880 people that are Amazon workers, people that work at Oracle, people that work in data.

00:21:08.580 You have Elon Musk. You have a lot of people that work for Tesla or, you know, that might work for

00:21:14.100 his, his Uber type company if he gets it going. But at least those people are creating jobs, a lot of

00:21:20.860 them. Now, do they still deserve to have that much wealth or hold that much wealth? I don't think so.

00:21:24.840 But, but then you also have, there's this argument like, well, let's get them to pay taxes. But then you

00:21:31.520 have things that happen like in Minnesota, like with this, the, this Somalian fraud, right? Like you have 1.00

00:21:36.420 this young man who's been going around, Nick Shirley, who's like kind of going door to door, like trick

00:21:41.760 or treating about fraud kind of, right? And figuring it out. That almost is like, it's like, why get people to

00:21:48.580 pay taxes? Who even cares about paying tax anymore? If we're just going to let them slip out of the bottom.

00:21:52.840 But the answer is fraud is disgusting. And especially to steal money from hungry kids.

00:21:59.240 If you have a program to feed hungry kids, you steal that money. That is probably as bad as it gets.

00:22:04.180 And I think way back in the early twenties under Biden, they started an investigation.

00:22:08.860 Those people should be severely punished. I don't care if you're Somali, if you're green, 1.00

00:22:13.020 you're blue, whatever you are. Right. I'm using the term Somali fraud because that's kind of the 1.00

00:22:16.420 term people are using. Yeah. But anyhow, that should be punished. That's disgusting behavior.

00:22:19.920 But, you know, understand, and I'm sure you do, it's fraud is not just in a child nutrition program

00:22:26.640 in Minnesota. I, you know, deal with this a little bit. We are spending a trillion dollars a year on

00:22:33.200 the military. Okay. There is not one major defense contractor that has not been charged with fraud,

00:22:41.920 frauding, being, you know, providing fraud to the United States government.

00:22:46.300 Uh, their CEOs make huge amounts of compensation. They cannot even undergo an independent audit.

00:22:53.660 They're the only government agencies. So they don't even know what they own. I mean,

00:22:56.880 it is so massive, but nobody, nobody, nobody, Republican, Democrat, independent,

00:23:02.980 nobody doubts that there's massive fraud. There's fraud all over the place, unfortunately,

00:23:06.700 in this country. And we've got to do our best to eliminate that. But at the end of the day,

00:23:11.380 I mean, we've got to revitalize, in my view, we've got to revitalize our democracy. We've got to hold

00:23:16.680 elected officials accountable. We've got to run cost-effective, efficient, uh, government.

00:23:22.520 But having been in government a long time, do you think that those things are actually possible?

00:23:27.100 Or at a certain point, are you like start to, do you lose hope? Because as a regular person,

00:23:32.580 it feels like we are, our, our political system works against us and it works for big business

00:23:39.980 interests. And that's not even up for debate anymore. It feels like you're lucky to find a

00:23:44.760 couple people who seem semi-human that work in politics, who have some semblance of a connection.

00:23:51.280 At least they, um, will talk about things that they feel like they really want to do,

00:23:56.040 or will show by some of their actions. But otherwise it feels really, it feels pretty hopeless.

00:24:00.680 Does it feel like that to you more and more? Uh, yes and no. Um, again, what I will,

00:24:07.620 I'll give you some examples. And, you know, this is my own political point of view. You agree with

00:24:11.140 me, you don't. It's okay. Uh, right here in New York city, we're sitting in New York right now.

00:24:17.640 Uh, a year ago, there was a guy named Zoran Mamdani, who nobody had ever heard of. He's an

00:24:23.160 assemblyman in New York. Nobody heard of him. He decided he wanted to run for mayor. He got,

00:24:27.860 he was at 1% in the polls. He was taking on the democratic establishment. So who the hell do

00:24:33.200 you think he was? You are taking on the Republican establishment, taking on the oligarchs in the

00:24:38.100 city, people front page, New York times, we're going to spend tens of millions of dollars to

00:24:42.220 defeat this guy. Yeah. You know what he did? Not only, I mean, he's a brilliant guy himself and a

00:24:47.680 very good politician, but he had 90,000 plus people in this city knocking on doors for him.

00:24:56.680 So you ask me, am I optimistic? Can we bring about change? I would say New York city is a pretty good

00:25:02.180 example of what happens when people come and he said, you know what, I'm going to make this city

00:25:06.240 work for working people, not just the billionaire class. And he's just been, you know, in office for

00:25:12.540 three or four weeks, I think he's doing great. But you asked me about my optimism. When I see

00:25:19.980 90,000 people going out on the streets, volunteering for this guy and he's implementing, he was out,

00:25:26.720 you know, we talked about being on the nurses picket line today. He was there with me standing

00:25:29.840 with the nurses. So yeah. And I've seen this other great members, you know, media doesn't do a great

00:25:36.260 job, but you got dozens of young men and women in the house of representatives, strong working class

00:25:42.380 candidates, members of Congress. So yeah, I am in that sense, optimistic. On the other hand,

00:25:48.480 you know, Donald Trump worries me very, very much. You remember, it's a funny story here. He was

00:25:54.860 inaugurated just about a year ago and I was there. I got, for whatever reason, I got pushed into the

00:26:00.360 front row. I was, I fell out of my chair. I was in a chair that broke. Yeah. Well, my chair didn't break,

00:26:08.280 but I was almost as close to Trump as I am to you now. And you remember who was behind Trump

00:26:14.620 at his inauguration? Oh yeah. Who was up there? You had Zuckerberg, you had Elon, you had Bezos.

00:26:23.280 You got it. Yeah. And a dozen other billionaires. Okay. So you ask me where I get pessimistic

00:26:30.240 is, you know, and literally this is not just saying this, it's true. I was thinking, you

00:26:39.380 remember Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg, but he said, Lincoln went to Gettysburg, the scene

00:26:45.180 of this horrible battle during the civil war, tens of thousands of soldiers killed. And a few

00:26:51.160 days later, Lincoln goes to the battlefield and he jots down some notes. And basically I'm

00:26:56.760 paraphrasing. What he says is, you know, these soldiers who are fighting against slavery

00:27:01.040 did not die in vain. They died so that we will have a continual government of the people,

00:27:08.200 by the people and for the people. Amen. And then I'm looking at what Trump and his inauguration

00:27:13.720 and I'm seeing these billionaires there and I'm thinking this is a government of the billionaires,

00:27:17.760 by the billionaires, for the billionaires. And that's kind of how it's evolved.

00:27:21.360 I'm not surprised that I just, I'm not surprised that this is kind of where we've ended up.

00:27:25.740 You know, I don't know if this happened overnight. Like it doesn't feel like this

00:27:30.260 happened overnight with Trump. It feels like this has happened more and more over time.

00:27:34.700 At least Trump, it feels like to me, this is messed up, but at least he brings his billionaires

00:27:39.320 up there and shows them off. You know, you're right. That is something that's kind of crazy

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00:30:09.400 But I love your energy about like, yeah, like how do we stay hopeful, right? How do we stay

00:30:15.000 hopeful when it seems like it feels almost impossible to how do you vote somebody in that would be

00:30:19.100 able to like stay in the tide of it all? Theo, this is where we've got to take a deep breath

00:30:25.420 and accept our very serious responsibilities as citizens, okay? And you think back, and I don't

00:30:33.380 want to romanticize this, but you think back on American history, and you know, we read all about

00:30:39.020 this when we were in the third grade, you know? Those were pretty brave guys, George Washington and

00:30:43.860 Jefferson and all those guys, taking on the British Empire, you know? No one in a million years thought

00:30:50.780 you could defeat the British Empire. For sure. And they did. And a lot of, thousands died. Thousands

00:30:56.260 of them died. It was a pretty bloody situation. And then you think about the Civil War where very

00:31:02.120 brave people said, you know what? Slavery is a moral abomination. We're not going to accept it

00:31:06.960 anymore. God knows what that Civil War was about. Hundreds of thousands of people on both sides

00:31:11.680 died, you know? And then you think about, and I think about this, you know, December, was it December

00:31:17.580 7th, 1941? The United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor. We were totally unprepared. Do you know that?

00:31:23.420 We were totally unprepared. We had to fight a war against Japan, a war against Hitler in Europe,

00:31:28.200 right? Totally unprepared. And yet the country came together. You know, instead of building cars,

00:31:34.400 they built tanks and planes. Literally in two or three years, we had put the Nazis on the defense of the 0.70

00:31:39.700 war was won. So what I'm saying is, this is perhaps the most difficult moment, in my view,

00:31:45.700 in modern American history. And it's because Trump is an authoritarian who happens not to believe in

00:31:54.180 democracy. And I think he's corrupt. And it's tough. But we have won great battles in the past. And I

00:32:01.980 believe, if we do not allow our people to become divided up, we will win this as well. And not only

00:32:08.940 defeat Trumpism, which I work very hard to do, but also create the kind of nation that we can become.

00:32:18.140 Healthcare is a human right. You know what? If you have some kids, children, they have a right to get all

00:32:23.640 the education they need. We are not some poor third world country. Right. Right? All right. So we have got to

00:32:30.820 have a vision of where we want to go as a nation. And I think if we fight for that vision, if we bring

00:32:37.600 people together, we can succeed. When you speak with guys like, like Mom Donnie, did you give,

00:32:43.780 did you have any suggestions for him? Did you give him any advice? Well, actually, he followed my

00:32:48.120 political career pretty closely. He studied what I did as mayor of Burlington back in the 80s,

00:32:53.600 the campaign that I ran. Yeah. So we chat every now and then. I am extraordinarily impressed by his

00:33:00.880 energy, his intelligence. He has a really good persona. He's out there with the people. And I

00:33:07.260 think he's going to do a really great job for the city of New York. Do you feel like the, like the

00:33:12.080 Democratic Party kind of takes him seriously as like a future candidate for like elections or for

00:33:16.900 presidential elections? Now you are raising a sensitive issue. Or is it a sensitive issue?

00:33:22.920 Sensitive issue. But yeah, is it, do they, or do they look at him as like a one-off, like an outsider?

00:33:28.140 No. Look, what's, what does it mean to be the establishment? The establishment means in a corrupt

00:33:32.840 political system, or if you're the establishment, what you do is you leave this, you get on the phone

00:33:37.940 and you talk to your billionaire friends and say, look, I'm setting up a super PAC. I want your help to,

00:33:42.520 you know, win the congressional race in Arizona and California, put in, I want you to put in $30

00:33:48.320 million each. Okay. I'll have $300 million. 10 of you put $300 million. I get the ads going next

00:33:53.220 week. We're in business, right? That's crazy. Yeah. That's the way the system works. All right.

00:33:57.920 And every now and then you have somebody like Mumdani who comes along and says, I don't want your 1.00

00:34:01.460 money. Not only do I not want your money, we're going to take you bastards on. Okay. Do they want to? 0.50

00:34:06.340 No. So the Democratic Party right now is kind of split. I am an independent.

00:34:12.520 Okay. To be honest with you, I'm the longest serving independent. I caucus with the Democrats,

00:34:16.580 but I'm an independent. Proud of it. But you're very, they get really independent too when it's

00:34:21.440 time to put you on the ballot too, I noticed. So that's fair. You know, so I work with people

00:34:26.860 like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Primo Jaiable and Roe Conner, a bunch of other people. And we are

00:34:33.400 trying to move the Democratic Party to be a party that stands with working class Americans and has the

00:34:40.920 courage to take on powerful special interests. Now there's another faction of the Democratic Party

00:34:45.640 that, you know, doesn't like Trump for, I think, a lot of right reasons. I agree with him.

00:34:50.500 But basically cuddles up to the moneyed interests. And that's the vision that we have. Mumdani is

00:34:55.720 part of the movement that I've helped try to build. Alexandria as well. And others, many,

00:35:02.180 many others. So that's the kind of the split that we're seeing within the Democratic Party.

00:35:05.760 Got it. Do you feel like you've been in politics for a long time and you're growing in to be an

00:35:10.300 adult now in your years? By an adult. I know my grandchildren will tell you I'm not, but I don't

00:35:18.240 know. But I just mean, do you feel like at some point, like it's time to start a new party,

00:35:24.060 like more than ever? Like, do you feel that, you know, because all you, I mean, you have guys like,

00:35:28.500 like you talk about guys like Roe Conner, people that are inspired by him. Like, you know,

00:35:31.600 like I got to sit down with him. I like a lot of things he has to say. He's a good guy. An internet

00:35:35.160 bill of rights. I feel like he has like, you know, he's a, he's a forward thinker. Yes, he is.

00:35:39.440 Smart guy. Yeah. And so I feel like if you got a band of people, it's not that hard to find the

00:35:44.380 people that people love. Good. All right. Have I thought about it? Yeah. Like for about 400 years.

00:35:50.160 That's all you've thought about it? All right. All right. But all right. Here is,

00:35:55.340 this is the reality that I have to deal with every day. In my view, the Republican Party,

00:36:02.820 which used to be a conservative party, a small government type party, has become under Trump

00:36:08.060 kind of a right wing extremist party. Okay. There are some exceptions to be sure, but that's kind of

00:36:14.260 where it is. Democratic Party, as I mentioned to you, their establishment more or less wants to

00:36:20.720 protect the status quo. And then there are those of us who want to bring about fundamental changes

00:36:25.600 in the economic and political life of the country. So that's where you are. Now, starting the third

00:36:30.420 party is something, when I was mayor of the city of Burlington, in a sense, we did. Okay. I took on,

00:36:37.540 I defeated a Democratic mayor. Yeah. And so we had Republicans, we had the Democrats.

00:36:43.200 That must have felt awesome, was it? You know, it felt pretty good. A guy had been mayor for 10 years

00:36:47.960 and nobody thought we could win. We won by 10 votes. Oh yeah. And by the way, I say that to

00:36:52.460 people, if you think it's hard, you could do it. We did it. All right. That was a long time ago.

00:36:58.060 And we started kind of unofficially, we called it independent party of sorts. So it can be done.

00:37:10.460 And there are strong independents today running for office who have a chance to win. But you ask

00:37:17.500 about starting a party within today's political climate, it is very hard. For example, you want

00:37:23.460 to start a party in many states, you're going to have to get enormous numbers of signatures in every

00:37:28.180 county in the state to even get on the ballot because the two-party system does not want you

00:37:34.540 on the ballot. Of course.

00:37:35.340 Okay. And you know, you likely don't have a lot of money to do all that stuff. So it ain't easy,

00:37:41.300 but there are people who are thinking about it right now where my energy is, is to transform the

00:37:46.260 Democratic Party. You know, when many years ago on the Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Harry Truman,

00:37:52.340 the Democratic Party was considered to be the party of the American working class. Unfortunately,

00:37:57.300 that has changed over the years. I want once again to have a Democratic Party, which has the guts

00:38:03.300 to stand up to the billionaire class and create an economy that works for everybody and not just

00:38:08.000 the very rich.

00:38:09.940 You know, we hear a lot about the, you know, we've interviewed some of these tech CEOs and

00:38:16.180 billionaires, really. And they talk about this kind of a universal basic income, right? But it sort

00:38:22.720 of feels like it's led by the tech industry. And if that gets created, that's not the same thing

00:38:28.840 as one that's led, it feels like, by the government. Does that make sense to you?

00:38:32.300 Yes. Because one that's subsidized by the government is more like, um, it doesn't feel

00:38:37.260 as controlled. Uh, well, I guess it does. It just feels like controlled by two different

00:38:41.260 groups.

00:38:41.540 But again, what I want to see, and I suspect you want to see, is you want to see, let's

00:38:46.720 not use the word, the government is not Tesla Corporation. The government theoretically in

00:38:53.000 a democratic society is you, right? And to some degree, you know, you don't like people,

00:38:57.880 you can get rid of them, right? Um, and our job is to create a more democratic with small

00:39:03.360 D, not a big D, a small D where government is responsive to the people. Um, but I want

00:39:10.640 to say a word on this, the issue that you just raised. Uh, I have over the last six months

00:39:17.600 become very, very concerned about AI and robotics. Uh, and there are a lot of reasons why. Uh,

00:39:26.280 number one, the easiest, I think most apparent reason is what these data centers, I don't

00:39:30.220 know, are you following these data centers?

00:39:31.600 Oh yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. What are the side effects they're taking over? Like they're absorbing

00:39:35.740 water in a lot of communities. I know they just built one in Louisiana near like Basque in

00:39:39.900 Louisiana. Um, yeah. And they're not even going to end up keeping that many jobs for people

00:39:44.560 once they're open. There will be a decent number of construction jobs. Right. But after

00:39:47.880 that, it's not going to be many. Right. To run the place like almost nobody. Security

00:39:51.720 guards, basically. Exactly. Exactly. Um, and the result of that is it drains, as you've just

00:39:57.680 said, uh, scarce in some cases, water resources and it raises electric bills. Okay. So that's

00:40:04.900 number one. Number two, to me, even the big issue, let me quote, I wrote this down here.

00:40:10.300 Okay. Elon Musk, our good friend, right? Musk. Now when you're

00:40:14.260 understand, to understand AI and robotics, understand that the very, a handful of the

00:40:21.200 very richest people on earth are investing hundreds of billions of dollars. Okay. That's

00:40:28.580 Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos, Mr. Ellison, Mr. Gates, uh, and others. Okay. These are the richest guys

00:40:36.100 on earth. Now why are they doing it? You think they're doing it to stay up nights and they're

00:40:41.000 staying up nights worrying about working people. You think they're investing hundreds of billions

00:40:45.140 of dollars to say, how do we make this world a better place for working people between you

00:40:51.260 and me? I don't think so. These guys have huge money, but getting back to the point you made

00:40:58.340 earlier, you know, it's not enough that they're worth hundreds of billions of dollars. They even

00:41:03.680 want more and more wealth and more and more power. Okay. So let's talk about what are the

00:41:08.740 implications of AI and robotics? Okay. Well, they're going to take away jobs. So then people

00:41:12.420 want to purpose. You got it. All right, good. You hit the nail on the head. Let's start off

00:41:16.780 on that one. And now the answer is nobody knows exactly. All right. No one can predict what happens

00:41:22.040 tomorrow, next year, five years. This is what Elon Musk, leader of this whole effort says, quote,

00:41:28.000 I'm quoting Mr. Musk, quote, AI and robots will replace all jobs. Working will be optional. End of

00:41:38.100 quote. And then he later said, yeah, you want to do a garden, the backyard for a hobby. That's great,

00:41:42.060 but you don't need to do that. Bill Gates worth a few hundred billion, heavily invested in this

00:41:46.520 Microsoft. Humans, quote, won't be needed for most things. End of quote. Dario Amodai, head of

00:41:56.160 Anthropik, quote, half of all entry-level jobs will disappear. And there are other estimates out

00:42:03.220 there that we're talking about over a period of years. Nobody knows exactly when tens of millions

00:42:08.440 of jobs in the next decade disappearing. So you tell me what happens when tens of millions of jobs

00:42:15.560 that people now make an income from disappear. What happens to those people?

00:42:21.180 Well, I think there's some of the, some of what I've heard is that some of these same companies

00:42:25.460 would then offer some share. It's kind of, it's a vague terminology a lot of times

00:42:29.660 of a universal basic income token or something. Really? No kidding. I agree. And how much you're

00:42:36.240 getting? I have no idea. And who's going to determine that? I have no idea, dude. It sounds

00:42:40.640 like you get like one 11th of a Rubik's cube every, every two weeks or something. But also I think

00:42:46.980 if, if you could get to a place where it was like that and people did feel a sense of some sense of

00:42:54.140 purpose or peace or part of something, again, it could be, there's a chance it could be something

00:42:59.720 beautiful. All right. There's a chance. All right. Good point. I agree with you. But my questions

00:43:04.880 would be, do we just end up working for these companies that, that are paying us this UBI?

00:43:11.020 What's the psychological effects of it, right? Like what's the long-term effects of it? And, and then

00:43:16.680 do we still have a sense of individuality, uh, if we don't have exactly anything to do,

00:43:22.560 you know, or do we just turn into those kids from Wally? Can you bring that kid up?

00:43:28.620 Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Like a young Bert Kreischer kind of there.

00:43:33.640 All right. But then what we need to do is to take a deep breath because this thing is moving

00:43:38.180 really fast. I don't know. Have you seen some of these robots on the internet?

00:43:41.920 Oh yeah. Unfortunately, I've shouldn't, some sites I shouldn't have been on, Bernie,

00:43:45.160 be honest with you, but yes. All right. Uh, I mean, they are moving very, very rapidly.

00:43:50.300 Yeah. A couple. Yeah. The ones from Atlanta are for sure. I'll tell you that.

00:43:53.840 And, um, you know, in Amazon, I think half of the workers have, I'm not sure about this. I think

00:43:59.460 half already have been replaced. Well, yeah. Especially if you start thinking that Waymo cars

00:44:03.220 are going to pick you up. It's just like, what are people, there's going to be a really tough,

00:44:07.380 does anybody have a plan for the first two years of this thing?

00:44:10.500 You got it. You got it. Okay. You're hitting the nail on the head here.

00:44:14.560 The point is this thing is moving at revolutionary speed. And I can tell you absolutely and positively

00:44:21.160 as a member of the United States Senate, the Congress is in no way prepared to deal with

00:44:27.060 this. You know, the United States got attacked tomorrow by some enemy. You know, we got a large

00:44:31.020 military, dah, dah, dah, dah. They know what to do. Ain't nobody been thinking about how to respond

00:44:35.440 to this extraordinary monumental change that's hitting the America. So I have proposed and I

00:44:43.000 got criticized by this for this every day, uh, a moratorium on data centers. Why am I doing that?

00:44:50.220 Well, number one, I want to protect people's communities. That's number one, electric rails,

00:44:54.000 water and all that. But also I got to say, got to take a deep breath. Your point, what the hell

00:44:58.560 is happening? Yeah. Are we prepared if tens of millions of people lose their jobs in the next

00:45:03.140 decade? All right. What happens? Who's, how do they stay alive? So the economics is one thing,

00:45:09.400 but I want to take it a step further. And this is now you're into crazy world. Okay. This is science

00:45:14.240 fiction, except it ain't science fiction. Yeah. We're here. That's right. We're here. Okay.

00:45:18.740 So you understand this AI now, you know, you know, what you know, based on what you've read,

00:45:25.240 what you've seen, your life experience, right? Me the same, everybody, every human being the same.

00:45:30.240 These AIs have absorbed all knowledge, every book that's been written, every mathematical formula,

00:45:38.760 every physics proposition, they got it. That's what they got.

00:45:42.220 And what worries, not just me, and this is, do you remember, what was it? 2001, the movie?

00:45:52.200 Do you ever see that movie? Oh yeah. Space Odyssey? Yeah. Space Odyssey. Yeah. All right.

00:45:55.920 And you remember, and this is done many years ago, Hal is the computer that runs the spaceship.

00:46:01.780 And one day the guy says, Hal, I'd like you to do this. And Hal says, well, sorry, I'm not going to do

00:46:06.420 it. Rebellion. Okay. Everyone's all really, you know, big joke, funny. I had,

00:46:12.220 a public meeting in Georgetown a few months ago with a guy named Jeffrey Hinton. Really nice guy.

00:46:17.540 Yeah. He's the godfather of AI, right? Right. He's the guy, he's been studying the issue.

00:46:21.100 Alleged. Yeah. You know, he's been studying the issue for decades, came up, you know,

00:46:25.200 he got a Nobel prize in physics. Okay. It's a big deal. There he is right there. Yeah. I've heard

00:46:30.180 a couple of his speeches. Yeah. And this is what he says. He says, there is no question in his mind

00:46:35.860 that at some point, sooner than later, AI will be smarter than human beings.

00:46:42.220 And it is not science fiction to worry about whether or not AI is going to communicate with

00:46:48.900 each other in a language that people don't know. Right. Ain't going to be English. And that 0.99

00:46:54.960 they may see the human race as an impediment to their progress. Okay. You with me? All right.

00:47:02.980 That's, that's the doomsday scenario. So that the computer's like, God, these people are slowing

00:47:07.000 us down. You got it. Okay. Now, again, you know, some people, I mean, I think nobody thinks

00:47:12.980 that that is crazy anymore. Some people say, well, you know, it's kind of unlikely, maybe

00:47:17.340 five to one, maybe 10 to one, but it is incredibly risky and they don't have the safeguards to

00:47:23.600 protect us. All right. Now let me give you something that I am seeing today and you're

00:47:28.000 seeing. And that is we are living in a country with a lot of emotional distress. Okay. For a variety

00:47:33.400 of reasons. A lot of young people are turning to AI for emotional companionship. Okay. I broke

00:47:41.900 up with my girlfriend. That's ridiculous. Okay. And, uh, you know, what do I do? Or, you

00:47:46.900 know, my mom is safe. So we're seeing people not relating to other human beings, but relating

00:47:55.180 to AI. What is the long-term implications of that? I mentioned earlier that robots are now

00:48:02.580 treating patients. Um, Musk talks about creating millions of robots in the next few years through

00:48:09.180 Tesla. Oh, it's Orwellian at some point. It's this, this very thing where it's like, do we,

00:48:13.620 would we even, here's my question. Would we even notice the day when we switch over from thinking

00:48:19.760 that we have control and we are making choices from us for ourselves to the day where we are just

00:48:25.020 following along what the computer says? Do you, do you think we would notice? Maybe not because

00:48:29.980 they would create the environment. It's, you know, it's pretty crazy stuff. It's crazy. And

00:48:37.140 then you got even things like warfare. Okay. You know, right now, to some degree, at least

00:48:43.820 certainly not in the Ukraine, but, or in Gaza, but to some degree, political leaders are constrained

00:48:51.000 about going to war because they don't want to be telling their, the parents of their young men and

00:48:56.460 women who died in war. Right. Well, every week there seems like a new place that we're trying

00:49:00.060 to attack or bully or take control. We'll get to that one in a minute, but generally,

00:49:03.480 what happens? What happens now? If I'm president of the United States, I don't have to send your

00:49:09.240 kids off the war. Right. I send robots off the war. What does that mean in terms of far right?

00:49:14.800 Am I going to go invading every country in the world? I don't have to tell any parent that the

00:49:18.100 kid was lost. Right. Yeah. You could sit up at night in your, in your white house or whatever,

00:49:21.620 and just use a remote control. You got it. And no loss of life. Right. All right. So what does

00:49:25.580 this mean? Not here, not for us anyway. Right. Right. Exactly. So what does this mean about

00:49:29.300 international instability? It's incredible. Well, there's going to be not much communication

00:49:34.060 anymore. If someone doesn't know if a drone just showed up in the middle of the night and did a

00:49:37.560 bunch of horrible things to their country. You got it. All right. So all that I'm saying, and I think

00:49:42.220 this stuff is moving very, very quickly. It is being pushed by the wealthiest people in the world

00:49:50.600 who, in my view, could care less about ordinary people who want more wealth and more power. Now

00:49:56.400 they deny all that stuff. That's my view. I think we've got to slow it down and ask the question

00:50:01.360 that you asked. All right. If AI can, and it can, do some good medical diagnoses, do some good

00:50:09.300 blood testing. It's, is that a good thing? It is a good thing. If you're working in a crap job in a

00:50:15.280 factory, right? You know, and AI can increase worker productivity. So you could work 20 hours a

00:50:21.540 week rather than 40 hours a week. Is that a good thing? I think it is, et cetera, et cetera.

00:50:26.140 Right. If the company then shares some of the profits that the company is making with the

00:50:30.100 workers. So that's the issue. It's a very simple proposition. Who is AI and robotics going to work

00:50:36.500 for? Does it work to improve human life? Or does it work to make the billionaires even richer?

00:50:41.860 That's the question that we've got to focus on. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely getting in. It's

00:50:47.100 definitely, uh, yeah. And I would urge you on the show, keep talking about it. Bring

00:50:53.900 knowledgeable people on, you know, I have my views. Other people have different views, but

00:50:58.280 I'll tell you, this is, this is monumental stuff that we are unprepared for. We need to discuss

00:51:05.100 it a lot. Well, it feels like, I mean, it feels like we're not going to be, I don't know. It starts

00:51:12.980 to feel a little bit hopeless that we're not going to have things that could change it down the line,

00:51:17.000 or it starts to feel like with AI stuff that we're getting there too late, but also with AI starts to

00:51:21.740 feel like, remember the internet, remember Y2K? Like the people thought like it was going to be crazy

00:51:26.320 or everybody was going to start, you know, everything was going to disappear, that a website name was going

00:51:31.460 to be the biggest thing. And that never amounted really to anything. Right. So the answer is we

00:51:35.380 don't know. We don't know. I mean, that's fair enough. Uh, so I'm not, you know, I'm telling you

00:51:39.300 what my fears are. You know, a hundred percent. And I think those are a lot of people's fears,

00:51:42.720 you know? Um, and you know what they can put up an AI figure that looks exactly like you. Yeah.

00:51:49.220 That sounds exactly like you that is saying something you have never said. That's already been done to me.

00:51:54.760 Yeah. Okay. And it could be done pretty easily, which raises, you know, you know, come an election

00:52:00.800 time. You're going to see somebody, wow. Why are they saying that? Can't vote for that guy.

00:52:04.760 Turns out to be a total fraud, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Do you feel like it's a time where we just

00:52:09.160 need to be in the streets more than ever, where people need to be revolting? Do you think it takes

00:52:13.680 a revolution to change? And like, what's really going to change? So it doesn't seem like voting

00:52:18.020 is going to get us there. Now I do like the idea that you have a guy like Mamdani that inspires you

00:52:22.480 and makes you feel hope and you feel like it's different and he's against an establishment. Even if

00:52:26.840 you feel, it feels like it's a local one, whatever that is, that he feels like it's different,

00:52:30.520 right? I agree. That is exciting. That is exhilarating. But is that, is a guy like that,

00:52:35.840 is like a Tom Sawyer like him, can he go through all the rapids of the like dirty Mississippi that

00:52:41.700 is fucking politics and get us to somewhere new? 0.85

00:52:44.860 He's not a savior. He's going to be a good mayor. We need a hundred men, Donnie. We need

00:52:50.000 what I call a political revolution. And that is, you know, what the establishment does,

00:52:56.300 you know, they're very greedy people. They could care less about ordinary people. They want more

00:53:02.560 wealth and power. But the ugliest thing that they do is through the media that they own, et cetera,

00:53:07.360 et cetera, is they tell people that they are powerless and they have no power. And the answer

00:53:13.440 is when people are organized and stand together, they do have power. And that's what we're trying

00:53:19.160 to do all over this country. Bring people, not allow Trump and his friends, I don't care if you're

00:53:23.480 black, you're white, you're gay, you're straight, who cares? You know, you're Muslim, 1.00

00:53:26.920 you're Jewish, whatever you may be. Let's stand together. Because again, I've been all over this

00:53:31.700 country. People understand that healthcare is a right. They want a good education system.

00:53:37.020 They don't think they should be 1% owning more wealth than the bottom, 93%. They're concerned

00:53:42.420 about climate change. They don't want this country involved in endless wars. Are there disagreements

00:53:47.080 on abortion and other issues? There are. But by and large, you'd be surprised. I was in,

00:53:53.040 a few months ago, I went to Mingo County, West Virginia. You know where that is?

00:53:58.260 I don't know where it is. I've spent some time in West Virginia, though. I like it.

00:54:01.640 Yeah, I love West Virginia. It's a beautiful state. It's a poor state. I went to the county,

00:54:06.720 Theo. Trump won West Virginia by over 70% of the vote. Okay? I went to the county where he did the best.

00:54:15.580 He got 74% of the vote. And I went to that county precisely because he got 74%. I want to hear what

00:54:24.180 people were thinking about it. Walk into a meeting. It wasn't the largest rally we ever did.

00:54:29.080 Four or 500 people in the middle of nowhere. This is nowhere. That's it. There's a picture of it.

00:54:35.400 A lot of people thought you were probably giving away free Ben and Jerry's out there, too.

00:54:38.040 Thanksgiving. Nope. And there it is. There's a picture of it. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. A big gym

00:54:44.000 there. And it turns out, this is Trump country. These are decent people. They're worried about

00:54:51.080 their kids. A veteran up there, worried about the needs of veterans. You know, mom worried about a

00:54:56.480 baby. So I'm not saying, you know, Vermont's a liberal state. West Virginia's a conservative

00:55:01.340 state. I'm not saying that there aren't differences of opinion. There are. Oh, yeah.

00:55:04.220 Yeah. But you'd be surprised. This is the good news. That as Americans, we share a lot of common

00:55:10.640 values. We know that so many people fought and died for democracy. What does democracy mean? It

00:55:16.640 means that just because I'm the president, I don't have the right to shut you up. I don't have the

00:55:21.620 right to politically prosecute you because you're against me. Yeah. You disagree with me? Fine. I'll

00:55:26.800 argue with you. You beat me in an election? Fine. I'm unhappy. That's the way life goes, right?

00:55:31.200 Mm-hmm. All right. See, the American people don't want a few billion, few people, billionaires

00:55:36.480 controlling the economy. They don't want an authoritarian society. They want an economy that

00:55:41.840 works for all. Those are the common threads, I think, that we can build a political movement

00:55:46.080 around. Well, I don't think people care if they're, I think people less and less even associate with

00:55:50.760 a party anymore. I think that's happened in the past two years. That to me feels like it's happened

00:55:56.300 more than ever. It feels like how do like, like if you've been looking at like the fraud

00:56:01.500 case, like in Minneapolis, and I know it's like, we don't know all the information about

00:56:05.340 it, but it's like the fact that a vigilante journalist type of kid, you know, this Nick

00:56:11.540 Shirley kid has to go door to door and that he's even bringing that, like whether or not

00:56:16.320 everything he's saying is true or factual, I don't know.

00:56:18.860 My understanding on that issue, and again, I haven't studied it. I'm the senator from

00:56:23.500 Vermont, but I think there was massive fraud in terms of child nutrition. Okay. That's

00:56:29.980 absolutely right. I believe that was investigated on the, on the Biden's attorney general in

00:56:36.240 2021. Actually, I believe dozens of people were arrested. So it is a real issue and it's

00:56:46.780 ugly and it's disgusting because again, stealing money from hungry children. I don't know that

00:56:50.740 you could do worse than that. Yeah. It's like, how do, but if, but this childcare thing, I

00:56:54.280 think is largely exaggerated. I don't think, you know, I think, you know, you could take

00:56:59.280 a, a, a camera and go someplace and the childcare center is closed or something. Oh, nobody's

00:57:04.000 there. Right. I don't think the childcare is an issue. The nutrition issue is real.

00:57:07.600 Yeah. I think that, yeah, I agree. I think there's, well, I agree that there's some parts

00:57:10.680 of it that it's like, it's tough to know. And if you just see a clip, it's tough to know

00:57:13.600 what the full reality is. Right. I agree. But the, the, the thing to me, well, there's

00:57:17.880 two things. One is that we're getting to a place where vigilante journalism, where somebody

00:57:22.340 hitting the streets, knocking on doors, like you're saying, whether it's to get somebody

00:57:26.420 to vote, to get somebody to open their ideas to a new thought, to make sure that something

00:57:32.500 that their tax dollars is going towards is going to like, that is becoming more important

00:57:37.820 than ever. And I think that's going to start happening more than ever. But two, that it's

00:57:41.980 like, um, that why didn't our gut, why? Like it feels, it makes us feel as, as regular

00:57:48.160 people, like, dude, we can't even trust that our government's going to figure this out for

00:57:53.120 us, that there's money just falling out of the bottles here.

00:57:56.260 Look, the answer is yes.

00:57:58.880 And then that makes people cannot care about either party. That's what I'm saying. It's

00:58:01.600 just like, but okay, let's put this thing in context. Okay. The answer is what you're

00:58:06.500 saying is true. Period. Okay. Now, and I'm not yelling at you about it. I'm just

00:58:10.320 animating. No, no, no, no. Okay, good. All right. But context, you got 340 million people

00:58:14.380 in this country. Guess what? A lot of them are dishonest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are

00:58:18.520 politicians who are dishonest. There are business people who are dishonest. There are media people

00:58:21.840 who are dishonest. That is the reality, right? I mentioned to you before, we spend a trillion

00:58:27.460 dollars a year on the military. Every single major defense contractor has been involved in

00:58:33.100 fraud. That's what they do. The insurance companies, every day, they're ripping off people.

00:58:37.400 The drug companies lying every single day. You got fossil fuel companies saying, oh, carbon

00:58:42.600 emissions don't cause climate change. Total, absolute lie. You had the tobacco companies.

00:58:47.480 Oh, you can smoke nine packs a day. Ain't going to cause you. So look, fraud exists. We got

00:58:52.580 to fight it wherever we can, in government, in the private sector. No argument. And you're

00:58:57.140 right. When people see it in government, it discourages them. But you got to put it in a broader

00:59:01.760 context. You have, for example, a social security system. 99 plus percent of the checks that go

00:59:08.340 out, go out to people who need them. Okay. You know, so all that I'm saying is when you're

00:59:12.580 dealing with hundreds of millions of people, yeah, you can find an aberration. You can find

00:59:17.440 fraud. Put it in a context. Got it. Understood. Paramount Plus is the new home of UFC. And the

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01:02:37.660 One thing that's really kind of changed a lot of people's, like young people's opinions too,

01:02:42.540 I think is Trump's relationship and our funding of Israel, especially during like the Gaza conflict,

01:02:51.520 right? It made, it put, it was like one of the first times in my life where you got to see,

01:02:55.800 you know, you saw children getting killed. You saw a lot of, and I know that there was,

01:03:00.080 there's conflict between those, Palestine and Israel, and there's October 7th. I know that,

01:03:03.580 I know the history of it, but it felt like Trump like just sort of went with Netanyahu on whatever

01:03:12.260 was, he wanted to do there. And it felt also like as a regular American, like we were supposed to be

01:03:18.420 the ones to go help in some instance. I think a lot of young people are kind of discouraged about

01:03:23.920 our relationship with Israel and what does that mean? Like, especially like with AIPAC and influencing

01:03:27.980 our elections and stuff like that.

01:03:29.360 Let me just say a word on that because it's an issue I've been deeply involved in. On October 7th,

01:03:35.540 Hamas committed a real atrocity. I mean, they went in, they invaded Israel, they killed,

01:03:40.920 it was at 1,200 men, women and children, a lot of kids, committed sexual abuse, et cetera.

01:03:46.260 Disgusting. They were a terrorist organization. Israel had a right to respond, like any government,

01:03:52.500 you know, that's attacked. But Israel did not have the right to go to war against the entire

01:03:58.620 Palestinian people. There are 2.2 million people in Gaza. That's not a lot of people, right? There

01:04:04.320 are 9 million people in New York City or 8.5 million people. That's all there are, and they're

01:04:08.160 poor people. Over the last several years, Israel has killed over 70,000, mostly women, children,

01:04:18.840 and the elderly. It has injured, I think, 160,000 or even more than that. So over 10% of the population

01:04:27.720 has been killed or wounded. Okay? Again, orphan, children, the elderly. Israel stopped humanitarian

01:04:35.880 aid coming in so that children were starving to death in violation of all international law.

01:04:41.200 And the United States, under Biden and under Trump, continued to fund a guy who I consider

01:04:48.740 to be a war criminal. Okay? War is a disgusting business.

01:04:51.720 Well, the ICC voted him a war. Didn't the ICC say he was a war criminal?

01:04:55.640 Yes, they did.

01:04:55.980 Except for America.

01:04:57.140 Yeah. So look, war is a disgusting business. But out of World War II, you remember the Geneva 0.54

01:05:03.200 Conventions? What they said is, look, war is disgusting, but you don't starve children in

01:05:07.140 a war. You want to kill an enemy, you kill an enemy. It's this horrible business. We want

01:05:12.140 to eliminate war. But there are rules of war, engagement. Starving children is, under any

01:05:19.340 definition, a horror. And that's what happened. Bombing all of the entire, people don't realize

01:05:26.080 this. Not only killing people, virtually every medical facility has been bombed. Schools have

01:05:32.340 been bombed. Water systems, wastewater, the place has been laid desolate. Those are war

01:05:37.660 crimes. And I did my best, and with some success, I managed to turn around. It started, the war

01:05:44.000 started, almost everybody would say, oh, you know, Israel would support Israel, Netanyahu.

01:05:47.840 That has changed. And your point is very important, that a lot of the impetus for those changes in

01:05:54.440 Congress came from young people. And not just, you know, people on the left. You got conservative,

01:05:59.540 Republican kids, who were saying, you know what? Not a great idea to fund Netanyahu.

01:06:04.220 Yeah. How much control do you feel like? Like, what is that relationship with Israel like? Because 0.97

01:06:09.240 I think it seems that, because of some of the atrocities, it makes a lot of Americans question

01:06:15.280 why we fund Israel. Why do we give money to Israel? And the answer is getting back to a corrupt 0.91

01:06:21.100 campaign finance system. If you check the record, and again, it's not just AIPAC. It is the crypto

01:06:28.340 industry. It is the insurance companies. It is the drug companies. But AIPAC is a significant

01:06:35.080 funder of, I would imagine, hundreds of members of Congress. So it's customary. You're there. We'll

01:06:40.680 send you a check for 10,000 bucks. If you're a leader, we may make it over a period of years,

01:06:45.580 hundreds of thousands of dollars. You're in the club. You're going to be pro-Israel. But having

01:06:50.220 said that, we're seeing, for all the reasons that you have suggested, we're seeing more

01:06:56.640 and more people saying, AIPAC, thank you. I don't want your money, actually, because

01:07:00.560 the people in my district are not happy with going with Netanyahu is doing. So I think

01:07:04.780 we're turning that around a little bit. But to my mind, I have long advocated not another

01:07:10.380 bloody nickel to go to the Netanyahu government. But it's not just Netanyahu. Switch gear a little

01:07:17.240 bit. In that part of the world, you've got Saudi Arabia. You know who runs Saudi Arabia? You've got

01:07:22.820 a guy named Mohammed bin Salman. Okay. Remember Mohammed? According to American intelligence,

01:07:29.600 Mohammed killed... Right here. Yeah, they call him Pizza Hut Head. There was a guy named Jamal Khashoggi.

01:07:36.320 That didn't mean anything to you? Yeah. Remember him? He was a reporter that got killed. He was a

01:07:39.620 Washington... There he is. That was under his rule, right? That's right. So what the intelligence

01:07:43.380 agency said that the leader of Saudi Arabia, Mr. Mohammed bin Salman, murdered. This guy, Khashoggi,

01:07:51.580 went into an embassy someplace. Was it Turkey or somewhere? I don't know where he was. Walked into

01:07:55.220 an embassy, came back, carved up, and put into a suitcase. Okay? Dismembered. He murdered him.

01:08:03.560 And yet, when bin Salman came to the United States, do you remember a few months ago? White House

01:08:10.640 rolled out the red carpet. We had the Marines there welcoming him. Why was that? Why does a guy who

01:08:18.760 the American intelligence says is a murder... A guy, by the way, who runs the country, you try to

01:08:23.740 protest this rule? Ha! Can't even do it, huh? Ha! Good luck to you. I mean, thousands of people are in

01:08:30.120 jail. They execute people. There's no dissent. Even when, like, when Netanyahu came and he pulled his

01:08:34.180 chair out for him. Remember that? That's the kind of thing to people, to, like, regular people,

01:08:38.480 it's like, what are we doing? It feels like our intelligence agency does not work for us.

01:08:42.440 All right. Well, it's not a question of intelligence. They did work. Why is it that

01:08:47.300 Musk is investing huge amounts of money in Saudi Arabia? Why is it that Trump loves this guy? Why

01:08:52.520 is it that Saudi Arabia is now allowing the Trump family to build, I don't know, what his resorts,

01:08:57.980 golf courses, whatever the hell they do there? Okay. Why is that? And the answer is, and this will upset

01:09:03.380 some people, it is my view, that is the kind of government that Trump likes. It is an authoritarian

01:09:08.800 government. They don't tolerate dissent. It is run by the, that family happens to be the wealthiest

01:09:13.500 family in the world. Bin Salman. Bin Salman? Yeah. They are, I think, combined, not, you know,

01:09:19.500 they're probably richer than Musk. And those, and meanwhile, we are attacking Europe every day.

01:09:25.280 You know, we're going to invade Greenland because Trump didn't get a prize or something.

01:09:29.460 I mean, that's already crazy. That is really crazy. I mean, for a second, it is, it's so crazy

01:09:35.980 sometimes. You got to laugh at it. You have to laugh at it. It's like, we've had police officers on

01:09:39.860 and they say, sometimes, you know, there'll be murders inside. There'll be victims. People have

01:09:43.860 been shot and murdered, horrible things. And you'll see us in the front yard laughing. And it's like,

01:09:48.240 because sometimes you have to, you have to step outside of the absurdity and laugh for a second.

01:09:54.320 All right. And all that I'm saying, and this ties, it's a whole longer discussion, but

01:09:58.280 it used to be that the United States was a strong advocate of democracy.

01:10:05.380 We became a model for countries all over the world saying, we would like to be like the United

01:10:10.200 States, our constitution, our bill of rights, declaration of independence was an inspiration

01:10:15.000 to a lot of people. And now you got the president of the United States having his best friend,

01:10:19.880 a dictator in Saudi Arabia, supporting a war criminal in Israel, Mr. Netanyahu, et cetera,

01:10:25.400 et cetera. And by the way, going to war, if you like, hopefully not literally, figuratively

01:10:30.820 at least with Europe. Why is that? Europe is a democratic, democratic government. Some

01:10:34.980 are conservative, some are progressive, but they are elected by the people. Trump does

01:10:38.620 not like democracy. So that worries me very, very much. All right. Maybe one or two more

01:10:43.200 questions if we could.

01:10:44.240 Okay, great. That sounds good. Recently with the ICE raids that have happened in Minnesota,

01:10:48.260 and they're happening everywhere, right? I mean, it's, it's become a big thing. And for me,

01:10:52.080 I think a lot of it is in response to, you know, there was a, such a border policy that

01:10:55.840 was keeping, allowing a lot of extra people here, right? Extra people that were not meeting

01:11:01.020 up with their, like their probation officer, not probation officers, but they're like attendance

01:11:06.320 officers at times, that sort of situation, right? So it resulted, it seems like in this

01:11:10.760 situation, we had to hire a lot of extra ICE agents, some of them even unqualified. Anyway,

01:11:15.440 it's left us in a unique place in America right now, but also just another place where people

01:11:19.720 in the streets are having to figure things out. Right. And we are the, all the ones fighting

01:11:23.640 about it online. Let me briefly tell you my view. People agree with me. Well, not agree

01:11:27.640 with me. I agree with you that our border security was weak. Okay. There is no excuse. All right.

01:11:34.180 My dad came from Poland. You know, other people's parents came from all over the world. All right.

01:11:38.820 You come to it. Um, there are reasons why people have kind of tried to slip into the United States.

01:11:45.600 99% of the times it's poverty, it's, uh, violence, drug violence, and wherever it is, Mexico, Guatemala, 0.54

01:11:53.020 or whatever. All right. But another, but that's illegal and it should be prohibited. We need

01:11:57.740 borders, strong borders. We need an immigration process in my view. Okay. That's number one.

01:12:03.520 Number two, we have between 10 and 14 million undocumented people in this country right now.

01:12:08.360 No one knows exactly. Yeah. All right. But the vast majority of those people work hard

01:12:16.080 and obey American law right now. Uh, during COVID, by the way, those are the people who are working

01:12:24.960 in the meatpacking plants. Those are the people who got a lot of the virus. Those are the people

01:12:29.340 who died. They kept the economy going in many respects. All right. In my view, and I think what

01:12:33.620 most Americans agree with, if you have lived in this country, even if you came across the border

01:12:37.620 illegally, but if you have obeyed the rules of America, you haven't committed crimes, you're

01:12:43.760 working hard, you're raising your family, you need a path towards citizenship as part of comprehensive

01:12:48.500 immigration reform. And by the way, given the fact that we have worker shortages all over this

01:12:54.100 country, we need those workers. Okay. So that's, I think what we need. Especially skilled labor we need

01:12:59.780 right now. That's right. That's right. And a lot of these people are doing important work.

01:13:03.160 Keeping the economy going. What Trump has done is in this big, beautiful bill of his greatly expanded

01:13:10.800 funding for ICE. And in my view, what he is doing is not just trying to get, and by the way,

01:13:19.920 it used to be, we're trying to get the criminals out of America. Remember that? Yeah. You know,

01:13:23.740 rapists and the murderers. We're well beyond that. Now you're knocking on doors of American citizens.

01:13:28.720 You're arresting Americans. You're arresting people who have never had. Oh, now that it's, 0.77

01:13:31.880 they're finding anybody that makes good tapas. You got it. That's right. That's exactly right. Okay.

01:13:36.220 And I think this is what frightens me. What Trump is using ICE for now is a domestic military operation.

01:13:43.820 And it's part of this intimidation. And if you stand up and, and that woman in Minnesota,

01:13:51.800 Good is her name? Yeah. Renee Good. Renee Good. All right. I saw that video. You know,

01:13:57.000 you don't shoot somebody in the head who is in that car. And I think it's Trump saying,

01:14:02.200 I have the power and we got domestic army. It's called ICE. And we're going to go out there

01:14:06.980 and we're going to arrest and we're going to intimidate. And part of that, this is what

01:14:11.600 Trumpism is about. It's intimidation. All right. You're in the media. You're CBS. You say something,

01:14:17.060 I'm going to sue you. You know, Theo, you say something I don't like. I may sue you.

01:14:21.980 You know, in, in, I don't like Venezuela. I'm going to, you know, send in the troops. I got the power

01:14:27.000 and I'm going to use it. I really, that scares me because that's what authoritarianism is about.

01:14:32.920 So do we, should we deal with immigration through comprehensive reform? Absolutely. I think that's 0.70

01:14:39.400 what the American people want. Do we want guys with masks around their face, dragging people

01:14:44.380 out of their apartments, out of their cars? I, you know, I, I don't think so. I don't think that's

01:14:50.420 what the American people want. Yeah. More and more resentment to that. Yeah. And we're in a tough

01:14:54.640 spot too, because we see things more now, right? We see all of it. We see it. So before you would

01:14:59.860 just hear about her, you would knew it was a plan, but you didn't have the visual effect

01:15:03.720 of it and how the visual effect makes you feel. Cell phones have revolutionized politics

01:15:07.760 and that's, everybody got a cell phone can take a video. And I think there's, that's one

01:15:11.140 of the side effects. It likes to, like, I agree. Like Trump has an authoritarian energy, right?

01:15:15.420 He, there's this, you know, and there's, there's positive parts about that. And there's negative

01:15:20.480 parts about that. No, I don't agree that there's anything positive about authoritarianism.

01:15:24.140 Well, maybe authoritarianism, I think somebody that's like somebody that.

01:15:27.220 Decisiveness. Yes. That's what I mean then. Decisiveness. Yes. Making bold decisions.

01:15:33.200 Yes. Yes. That's the part that I think.

01:15:34.820 Authoritarianism, disregarding the constitution and the rule of law. I'm sorry. No, I agree.

01:15:39.200 I agree with that. That's, and that's what I meant. One last question before you go,

01:15:42.760 Mr. Sanders. And Nick, will you bring up those CEOs one more time? I just want to see the faces

01:15:46.660 of those good gentlemen who have made 15 million allegedly, I believe in 26 million allegedly as

01:15:52.500 well. Not allegedly. I think that's a fact. Oh, there you go, Bernie. I'll take that.

01:15:55.940 Um, while nurses, nurses are trying to make sure that their healthcare doesn't get, uh, 0.93

01:16:01.880 discontinued at certain points. Um, and, uh, and just real quick, uh, people can get involved by

01:16:07.060 donating to the NYSNA hardship fund. And, uh, we'll put the link to that and where you can show up to

01:16:14.240 support the strike. It's going on every day right now. There's a, one other big concern that people

01:16:19.000 have is that there is with the Epstein stuff that there are people really protecting pedophiles.

01:16:24.100 Do you think that's as big of a thing as people think, or do you think it's more of a political

01:16:28.040 kickball that gets kicked around a lot?

01:16:30.120 Hard to say. We don't know. Uh, all I can tell you is when Trump ran for office, what did he say?

01:16:37.640 Got to release all, underline all the files.

01:16:40.280 Yeah.

01:16:40.480 Okay. I think you should. And I think the thing about the Epstein files is it touches on everything

01:16:47.000 we've talked about it is there is a sense we're living in two worlds. You go out, you know,

01:16:52.120 you go through a red light or you do something stupid, get drunk and drive, you're going to be

01:16:55.640 arrested. Right?

01:16:56.440 Right.

01:16:56.840 But if you're a very, very wealthy person and you do some really disgusting things with women and girls,

01:17:02.000 well, you're rich and you're powerful and you have friends. You don't have to pay the price.

01:17:05.520 With children. That's the, that's the fear is like you say, we, we can't even protect our children.

01:17:10.620 But, and these guys get away with that. It's a two tier system. You get punished. You're an

01:17:14.880 average person. You're a billionaire. You could do horrible, disgusting things. Hey, no problem.

01:17:19.540 That's what it is. So my own view is Trump said, release all the files, release all the files.

01:17:23.900 We should release them. Did you, but you never knew it. But when, like it was, but you don't hear

01:17:28.860 anything super that we don't know by being in, uh, by being in your position.

01:17:32.860 All you hear is speculation, you know, and I don't want to engage in that speculation. Just

01:17:36.960 release all the information and let people decide.

01:17:39.940 Let people decide.

01:17:40.580 All right.

01:17:41.040 Yep. One more time. Bring those CEOs up. I just want to see them. And, uh, and Bernie Sanders,

01:17:45.000 thank you so much. And, um, yeah, I just appreciate your time.

01:17:48.720 Well, it's my pleasure. And thank you very much for the work you're doing.

01:17:52.540 We're trying, man. You know, it's a, you know, I'm learning as I go.

01:17:56.120 Look, Theo, the important point is you're honestly, you know, you and I can agree or not agree,

01:18:01.760 but having serious discussion about serious issues is exactly what the country needs right

01:18:06.800 now. Yeah. Well, thanks, man. Yeah. I do care. I know that.

01:18:10.920 I know you do.

01:18:11.420 Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves. I must be cornerstone.

01:18:21.200 Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind. I found I can feel it in my bones.

01:18:32.940 But it's gonna tell you.

This Past Weekend with Theo Von - January 21, 2026

#635 - Sen. Bernie Sanders

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