What Now? with Trevor Noah
Hosted by Trevor Noah
Original podcast
Senator Bernie Sanders joins Trevor to discuss what the heck is going on in America right now (hint: it’s oligarchy)
17,454 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
He served four terms as mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Eight terms in the US House and was elected to the Senate in 2006. This photo of a young Bernie Sanders being arrested in 1963 on the South Side of Chicago in the midst of the civil rights movement.
I'm very proud of the fact that I'm the longest-serving independent in the history of the United States. I caucus with the Democrats and always have.
Some people would be like, Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, but he's speaking for the progressive wing of the party right now.
Billionaires should not be able to buy elections. And by the way, that's not just a progressive perspective. Conservatives understand that too.
Bernie Sanders drawing crowds of tens of thousands in his full-throated fight against oligarchy.
Trying to help Democrats find their footing among working-class Americans and reclaim power next November.
This is What Now with Trevor Noah.
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Baz, take a look and see. My wife is gonna yell at me. I'm being totally disheveled.
Yeah, that's funny.
I wanna be half as good-looking as Trevor. I don't wanna dominate the whole thing.
They account for age. It's like golf. We have a handicap. How long have you been in town?
Oh, about a half hour.
Oh, wow. Okay. How long are you staying in town?
Oh, about a day.
Okay.
We're doing an event with Mamdani tomorrow night.
Oh, that's exciting. Oh, that's really exciting.
And presumably, we're doing a parade in the morning if it doesn't rain, so we'll see.
It said it was gonna rain today, and then it didn't, so I hope that's a good sign?
Good.
And like every day, it's switching around, you know?
So you do these things, what, five days a week?
I try and do as many as I can when we can, you know? So, it depends on when people are around, when we can, you know?
So you kinda enjoy this stuff?
I love it because I love that we get to spend time.
Yeah.
You know?
Well, that's the revolution, and it's... People are tired of seeing seven second soundbites.
Exactly.
And I'm amazed. I mean, podcasts have exploded, haven't they?
Yeah, so I think it I think it's nice for for a book, for a conversation, for politics.
Yeah, for anything. How the hell you understand anything in a few minutes.
All good, all settled, all everything. Then we jump into it. Senator Bernie Sanders, welcome to the show.
Great to be with you.
Do you do you take requests that are going to be in New York just so you can get back to New York?
Not really. Uh, no. We have some important engagements tomorrow. We're going to be working to see that Mr. Mamdani becomes the next mayor of this great city. And we'll be working with him tomorrow.
That's exciting. That's actually really exciting. And I feel like it ties into everything that you hear to talk about today because, you know, I was reading through your new book that's coming out. And I was I was reading about your life and I was just thinking to myself, you know, there's there's one part of the book where you you make your dedications and you dedicate the book to your grandchildren. And there's another part of the book where you talk about the teachers that you've spoken to and the struggles that they face in America today. You know, just the cost of living, the cost of teaching, the cost of being. And as I was reading through my notes and everything, I went, wow, Bernie Sanders, eighty three years old.
And I was looking for time markers in and around what eighty three means. And I was like,
social security is ninety years old. And I don't know why I felt like that was that was a particularly particularly significant thing because I felt like you are somebody who has lived long enough to see America through different stages and through different phases. And so maybe that's where I'd like to start as we move through this journey, getting into the fight against oligarchy and and what you what you're trying to get people on board with now. How far do you think America is off from the promise it's given to its people?
Uh, I think you have a president who is way, way off. Who is, in my view, the most dangerous president in American history, taking us in the wrong direction in every area.
On the other hand, I think you got a whole lot of people uh who.
Would love to see a very, very different America than we have today. So Trump is, what Trump is saying, and this is, I think, an important political point. He says the system is broken.
And you know what? He's right. System is broken. Problem is, his solutions will make a bad situation worse. And from a political point of view, the Democrats say, well, you know, we've got to tinker around the edges on this, do a little bit over here, but basically, we're doing okay.
That's wrong. So I think you have millions of people who understand that in the richest country in the history of the world, we should be doing a hell of a lot better than we are doing today.
You know, it's interesting, you just said that because I was talking to the team, and you know, my friend and I were walking, chatting about this episode, and one of the things that struck us was exactly what you said, is Trump always identifies that there is a problem. Right? His solutions oftentimes seem absurd, and they are, but he identifies that there is a problem.
Exactly right. And not only him. If you talk to his people in education, they say the system is broken. You talk to people who work on healthcare, they say the system is broken. So they tap the anger and the frustration. People say, yeah, the system is broken.
Then you hear their solutions, half the time, they're totally crazy and will make the situation worse. But it is important, and what I try to do in the book is to lay it on the table. What the hell is going on in America right now? But you tell me, is the system working?
Why do you think you're comfortable doing that when so many of your, you know, fellow senators and congresspeople aren't? Because I think of AOC, I don't know if you ever saw, this was right after the election, AOC did a poll, I think it was on Instagram.
Yep.
And she said, how many of you voted for me and voted for Donald Trump? Which seemed crazy.
No, it did not seem crazy.
And a lot of people said, I voted for you and I voted for Donald Trump. And the main thing they said was, I voted for both of you because although you're very different, you both acknowledge that this thing doesn't work.
That's exactly right. And the people are right. Look, I mean, I think one of the things I try to do in the book.
Is to raise issues that you're not going to see on corporate media. And you're certainly not going to hear discussed very much in that US House or US Senate. Politicians don't talk about it. And that is, okay, who has the wealth and who has the power? Simple question, right?
Do you ever talk of it? Do we ever hear much discussion about it? We don't. But the reality is that today in America, and we spend a lot of time talking about this in the book, is we have more income and wealth inequality than we've ever had in the history of the United States. Okay? Now, you tell me if it's not crazy. I think it's crazy that you have one guy, Elon Musk, owning more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households.
Bottom 52%?
Yes. Is that insane? I think it is. But here's another point. Who determines what we should get outraged about? All right? So some kid with a gun walks into a shop down here and shoots somebody. We're all outraged, and we should be. Okay? Crime is a serious problem. But if the heads of the fossil fuel industry lie to us day after day and are jeopardizing the well-being of billions of people on this planet, should we get outraged or should we give them an award for being great humanitarians? In other words, you understand what I'm saying?
Yeah, no, I get exactly what you're saying.
They controlled the culture, what we're supposed to respond to. So to me, you lay it right on the table. It is insane that one person owns more wealth than the bottom 52%. Top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 93%. CEOs make 350 times what their workers make. So you've just put that on the table. Should we be discussing that day in and day out? I think we should.
Some people say we're going after the wrong people, though. You know, I've heard so many people, when I have these conversations with them, they go, "Why are you getting angry that Elon made money? I mean, Elon's made electric cars and Elon has made this fantastic space internet. And Elon has made so much money for the American public. And Elon hires people and Elon has factories. And why are you hating on him, Bernie? Why are you hating on the guy who's bringing ingenuity and he's bringing money? Like, why? He's making the money.
Good. That is exactly right, and millions of people share that view. So should we be quote unquote punishing Elon? No. But should we be having a living in a society which allows so few to have so much wealth and so much power? And it gets to a whole other issue, which we try to raise in the book.
Uh huh.
All right, everybody wants to make money, right? You want to make money, I want to make, everybody wants to live comfortably. Elon Musk wants to live comfortably. Is enough enough? When is enough enough? How much do you need? And how far are you willing to go to a destroy the environment? All right, to get more? Or to do things like recently, you know, Trump's big beautiful bill? A trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1%. Massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition and education. And these guys will go further. In other words, they do not look at economics or something. Well, you know, I made it, I got $3 billion, man. I couldn't spend that in a thousand years. How lucky am I? It's not what they think.
They want more and more and more, more wealth and more power. And that has got to be stopped.
When you look at the way the system is built right now, you know, I, I know it's easy for a lot of people to say, um, we hate oligarchs and then other people say, oh, America doesn't have oligarchs. They go, America has a democracy. And America just has some very rich people who have made some important things that make the world go around. So we shouldn't call them oligarchs, we should call them business people. And that's what America is founded on, it's founded on business. How do you respond when somebody says, well, Bernie, you're just trying to interrupt a very natural thing? That is capitalism and it's the greatest system in the world.
You're in a hyper capitalist situation. Uh, when we talk about oligarch, oligarchy, you're talking about a small number of people with incredible wealth and power.
All right, so what is their power about? Their power is not only that they control to a significant degree, the entire economy. So today, not only do you have more income and wealth and equality that we've ever had, you have more concentration of ownership. Okay, that means fewer and fewer large corporations uh, own and control what is produced, what their workers make, what you pay at the grocery store.
Yeah, okay.
And then on top of that, these corporations themselves are owned by huge Wall Street firms. So you have companies like BlackRock, uh, Vanguard, State Street.
These three corporations combined are the dominant stockholders in ninety-five percent of American corporations. Got that?
They're the dominant?
Yes. Add the three together. You look up, go to Google, look up any corporation you want to, almost any. You will find Vanguard, State Street, BlackRock, major stockholders.
I know, you're looking at me in a quizzical way here. It's true, check it out. So what it is, I'll give you an example. I was the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee, now the ranking member. So we hear from and reach out to workers all over this country who are involved in labor struggles.
Yeah, yeah.
They call Bernie, we're on strike, can you give us support? So we get on the phone and we call up the guy who's nominally the head of the company, he says, you're talking to the wrong guy Bernie, somebody else owns us. And you find that somebody else owns somebody else. That's what a conglomerate is about. Somebody owns something, but it's owned several times over.
All right. It's a relatively small number of people who control the economy. That's called oligarchy. But it's not just that. How do you get the information? You're in the information business, right? Or the entertainment business. That's what you do for a living, correct? So who owns the media? You tell me.
It's a few companies now.
That's right.
And everything's getting consolidated, it's becoming smaller and smaller, it's fewer and fewer people.
You got it.
All right. So what my understanding is, you have six large international conglomerates, media conglomerates, that control about ninety percent of what the American people see, hear, and read. All right. So look, take a look, talk about oligarchy. Mr. Musk, is that all he does is make electric vehicles? Not quite. He owns Twitter, right?
Oh, what about Mr. Bezos? Well, he owns the Washington Post, which is a very influential newspaper, and he owns Twitch. What about the Ellison family? Well, they just bought Paramount, which happens to own CBS, movie, all right? And then you've got Mr. Zuckerberg, of course, who owns Meta, which controls Facebook and Instagram. So you've got four of the wealthiest guys in America owning just those, not to mention Rupert Murdoch, obviously from, owns Fox, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, right-wing newspapers all over the world. You check out who owns newspapers in the United States billionaires by and large. So you add up income and wealth inequality, concentration of ownership,
control over the media, and let me throw out another one. We talked about democracy. Well, Trevor, that we live in a democracy. People would say yes. And the answer is yes and no. We have elections, right? So who plays the influential role in elections? All right, let's go back just to the last election. Mr. Musk, the wealthiest guy on earth, spent $270 million to help elect Donald Trump. Right? 270 million, that's true. Yeah. And his reward, these guys don't make investments without getting something in return. True, I mean, they don't do it out of the goodness of their heart. So forget all the tax breaks and other breaks that he got.
He got to run the government for three or four months and impose his right wing extremist ideology Yeah. on the American people. I'll give you another example. There was this so-called big, beautiful bill.
What happens if a Republican were to stand up and say, you know what? I looked at this bill, it ain't a good bill. And it happened, there's a guy named Tom Tillis, that name bring a bell to you? He's a senator from North Carolina, not the world's most famous senator, just kind of a typical conservative Republican. He made the mistake of actually reading the bill. And he discovered that several hundred thousand people in North Carolina were going to lose the health insurance. He says, you know what? I can't support that. You know what happened to him? Literally within hours, Trump was on social media ripping the hell out of this guy. Billionaires were saying, we are gonna, you know, we got a primary opponent against you. And I think in a day, he said, forget it, I'm out of here, I'm not running for reelection.
So right now, what oligarchy is about is not only controlling the economy, controlling the media, it is also controlling the political process. Yeah. And it's not just Republicans. Kamala Harris had some 80 billionaires contributing to her campaign. And I think that resulted in her running a much more conservative campaign than she should have run. It was an election that should have, that she should have won, in my view. She lost it because of conservative influence from the billionaires who told her not to speak up for working families.
That's called oligarchy. Is that the, does that sound like an oligarchy to you?
I mean, it sounds like an oligarchy. The, the, you know, the, the only thing that comes to my mind is that I think of an ecosystem, you know? Any ecosystem goes out of balance when one species is sort of allowed to thrive by itself without a natural predator of some sort. So it's a weed or a plant that moves and then all of a sudden it's, you know, i- i- it just prophylates or propagates over and over. Do you get what I'm saying?
It can be a, um, it can be a rabbit that goes from one island to another and all of a sudden it can just breed to infinity and wipe things out. I, I, I wonder if, if America can get out of this place because as you, as you just said, there's something really interesting to what, what you just said. The Republicans have very openly said, especially under Trump, we're pro-business and we're with these people. Democrats say they're on the side of the people, but then a lot of the time their actions don't seem to match up. It seems like they-
Trevor, let's not be naive. No. I don't think anyone in America believes that Democrats are on the side of working class people. I mean, there's some rhetoric occasionally, but most working people don't know it. And in fact, the dynamics of American politics is over the last forty or fifty years, the Democratic Party, which once was the party of the American working class, is now, you know, a, a corporate party, which has done in fairness, and I always say this. We have made significant advances in civil rights, in women's rights, in gay rights, and at least in environmental consciousness. Democrats deserve a lot of credit for that. But in terms of representing the needs of the working class,
if they represented the needs of the working class, you would not have this massive income and wealth inequality. And equally important, today, you know, I talked about the rich getting richer and all that stuff.
What's going on for the wor- you tell me what's going on for the working class in America today? How they doing?
Earning less than ever before.
Income's not matching up with inflation.
So here's a startling fact. We put it in the book. And that is over the last fifty or so years, real inflation accounted for wages, weekly, weekly wages.
For the average American worker is lower today than it was fifty years ago.
Lower today than it was fifty years ago.
Think about the explosion in technology, right? Workers are far more- Productive, they're producing a lot more.
Uh huh, uh huh.
And yet during that entire period, despite increases in worker productivity, real inflation account of wages are lower. Meanwhile, during that same period, there was a seventy five trillion dollar transfer of wealth that went from the bottom ninety percent to the top one percent. So you add all of that stuff up, it's not hard to, you know, I think people instinctively understand it. The very rich are doing phenomenally well. Massive transfer of wealth, working families are struggling. Sixty percent of people in America today live paycheck to paycheck. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth. Highest rate of senior poverty of almost any major country on earth. That is where we are as a nation today.
In the book, you you tell a story about being at Trump's inauguration.
No, you're reminding me of that, right?
You wrote it in the book.
I know.
And you talk about looking around at the people who are gathered there. And obviously, there's everyone, you know, who works in the government, senators, et cetera. But you notice there's an outsized collection of the richest people in the world. Like, the way you describe it, it sounds less like an inauguration, more like a like a board meeting, you know, like a.
That's true.
It it seems like I I want to know if you think this is the worst it's been. Was it growing to this? Because it surely didn't just happen overnight.
Of course not.
When do you think, what do you think was the first domino? If if we were to take a step back and go, okay, Bernie, when do you think you remember seeing the first domino where you went, oh, man, this this is not how it's supposed to
I don't know if I know the answer to that, but I will tell you. I mean, again, going back to the inaugural.
You had the three wealthiest guys, Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg, sitting right behind Trump. And right behind them were another, I think, fifteen billionaires who Trump had nominated. To head up a major federal agencies, okay? That's the reality. This is a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class and for the billionaire class. When did this begin? Did it just start under Trump? Of course not.
Mm hmm.
But I think the brazenness, what you gotta give Trump credit for. In the past, money always played an important role. No secret there. But he's right out open. I don't give a damn. The whole world knows it. I got the richest people in the world sitting right beside me. And they're gonna generously give to my inauguration fund. And oh my goodness, they're gonna give me gifts.
Oh my goodness.
My presidential library, my, yeah.
Right. And the guy from Qatar, whatever is, you know, decided to give us a three, four hundred million dollar plane. Just a generous person. So nice to me. Uh, you know, and on and on to go. You know, he's made billions of dollars from crypto, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, when did it begin? I think, I'm not an expert on this. I, I think early nineteen seventies. When Democrats were saying, hey, Republicans get all this corporate money. Why don't we start getting some of that money as well? And in politics, the truth is, you know, see, there's an old Woody Guthrie song, which is, which side are you on? So if you're taking money from billionaires and large corporations, at the end of the day, you may say nice things.
You may occasionally do good things, but you're not gonna be on the side of the working class. And the results are pretty clear.
So when, when you're in Washington DC and you're, you're surrounded by all these people, I always wonder sort of like what the inner conversations are, because I, I read, I read articles and obviously, you know, I'm on the outside. And so I'm trying to understand what's happening. And I remember one of the articles I read that really got me was, it was talking about the upcoming midterms and then thinking forward to the next election. And I'm, I'm sure you've seen this, but it was, um, it was AI related, uh, tech investors and, you know, the likes of Zuckerberg and you name it. And they are putting together these massive, massive super PACs.
Yes.
And their only goal is to go after politicians who suggest any type of regulations against AI. And they go, we're gonna destroy you before you get in. And then some politicians have commented either on or off the record saying, well, I don't wanna cross them because I, I don't think this AI thing is that big a deal in what I'm doing anyway. So I'm, I'm just not gonna cross them.
But it's such a, that's true. But that's what I'm talking about. So do we live in a democracy? Yeah. But if you vote away, if I'm a crypto guy, or I'm an AI guy, or I'm a fossil fuel guy, you can run for office, but I'm going to put huge amounts of money in a super PAC as a result of this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision. And I'm going to beat you. Now, will I beat you every single time? No. But you know what? If I put tens and tens of millions of dollars into your opponent, Trevor, I will beat you most of the time.
And that's, that's called a corrupt political system, and that's what we're living in.
So where, where do we begin? You know, in the book, you, you, you lay out all these facts, and I won't lie. Some, when I was reading through some of the numbers, I was like, Bernie, this is, this is insane. The numbers are so overwhelming.
Yes, they are.
It's, it's, it's impossible. It, it just seems like this monumental task. And, and then you talk about, which I think is important, all the people who are coming out to support. You know, you've got thirty thousand people coming to your rallies at a time when the media tells people that no one wants to be engaged in politics. The media says no one cares about politics anymore. No one wants to read it. But they're coming out to your rallies. You know, people are showing up, people are showing up for Mamdani, people are showing up for, for, for certain politicians who are saying a certain thing. And I, I, I wonder what the first steps are. Like, maybe that's what we should be talking about, is, you know, you go through the book. And I love how you take us through some of the historical fights, for instance, that once seemed unwinnable. If, if you were to start with one thing today, where do you think we start?
Because it seems like a cycle right now. It's like they, they have the money so they can put the ads out. The ads get their people in. When their people are in, they make the laws to favor them. So then how do you, how do you break it? Because it seems like a chicken and the egg cycle.
Look, I wish I could tell you there was a magical solution. But you mentioned, you know, the Mamdani campaign is a very good example. It seems to me like a microcosm of what we're looking at. Give you an example. So this guy, who nobody had ever heard of, starts off at 1% of the polls, right here in New York City, 2%, he suddenly starts raising issues that are on everyone's mind. Nobody can afford housing in New York City, right? Working class people can't do that. Transportation is expensive, childcare is off the charts. Working class people have a hard time getting decent quality food for their kids at a price they can pay, right? Among other issues. He starts raising these issues, gets more and more support.
Comes into the primary, he generates, as I understand it, he gets 50,000 volunteers. 50,000 volunteers! That is insane! Totally insane! All right? So, to everybody's shock and surprise, he beats a former governor, right, Mr. Cuomo? Right. Everyone beats a... You would think, now, in terms of politics, let's just talk about politics, Democratic Party with leadership would say, "Whoa! Here we are, our people are demoralized, Trump was elected, we got a young guy, a smart guy, he has 50,000 volunteers, raising small dollar donors, this could not be better! Oh my God, we're off and running!
There's a revolution! Thank God!" Well, not quite. The four major Democratic leaders in the state of Vermont, as of today, no one's supporting him. Now, doesn't that sound a little bit weird? When the Democratic Party, according to the polls today, is at the lowest point it has been in decades, one candidate generates enormous enthusiasm, pulls off a major upset, but they don't support him. Why is that? And what does this have to do with oligarchy? Meanwhile, at the same time, you have people, and this is, you know, this to me is kind of new. Money always played a role in politics, no question. But you got people like, was it Bill Ackman or something?
Yeah, yeah. Goss, there he says, "We are oligarchs, we are billionaires, and we are now going to spend as much money as it takes to defeat Mr. Mondani." Really? That's called democracy?
I mean, and they're out in the open about it. It's not, it's not like he's putting money underneath.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, front page of the newspaper. We will, so who the hell is, who runs the city? And then what you're really looking at, and I don't want to take this too far a stretch. You got a president of the United States, you know, he gets into sometimes squabbles with Mr. Putin. But the idea of, you know, in Russia, there are elections, you know that? Putin always gets eighty, ninety percent of the vote.
He does very well.
Only his people can run for office. So Saudi Arabia, where you will remember Trump made his very first trip, that's where he went, to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE. These are zillionaires, I mean, some of the wealthiest people in the world, running autocratic governments. So what is true, in my view, is many of the, coming back here to the United States, many of these big tech guys, they don't believe in democracy. I mean, read what they say. It's not just that they want to even support this or that opponent. At the end of the day, they think democracy is an impediment to their God-given right to make as much money as, as they, as they want.
That's what we're looking at right now. Scary stuff.
So I can't, I can't help but wonder where America goes from here, because New York is like the perfect example. You know, I, everyone was shocked at how Mamdani rose. I mean, his ascendancy was nothing short of spectacular. Andrew Cuomo seems like it's, it's a done deal.
The next thing you know, Mamdani has it. Andrew Cuomo is dropping out, and then he's not dropping out, and then nobody's supporting Mamdani. I won't lie to you, it felt reminiscent, and it feels reminiscent of your campaign in 2016.
Twenty, twenty, twenty, more like twenty.
Well, but also, but I'd like, yeah, I'm sorry, yeah, going back, but like, when I think of, no, but I think of your campaign where, where everyone assumed Hillary was winning. And people went, well, this is the next line in the succession. This is how it's gonna go.
She was the anointed one.
The anointed one, right. This senator from Vermont comes along, Bernie Sanders, people go, oh, it's silly summer, it happens, it'll go.
The people on the ground start swelling up. And the people say, I think this Bernie guy could be the one. But then the Democratic Party are the ones that stand in the way and, and.
I then ask a question that I think a lot of people are asking on the ground, and that is, is the Democratic Party still the vehicle for liberalism in America?
Well, I don't like the word liberalism, but I would for progressivism.
Ah, progressivism, okay.
Better word. And the answer is, to be God's, God honest with you, I don't know. I don't know. We are supporting candidates who are running as independents and as progressive Democrats right now. What I will tell you, Trevor, is that around the world, what's going on here in the, around the world, there are similar political situations that there are here in the United States.
So centrist parties like the Democratic Party are in decline in Germany, in France, in the UK. Right-wing extremist bodies like Trump's MAGA movement are on ascendency, with some exceptions. That's the trend. And the reason is that all over the world, in the global economy, working people, rural people, are feeling left behind while the rich get richer. And right-wing extremists like Trump have something to say to them. Centrist bodies
do not. So I think where the democratic leadership is right now is way, way, way out of touch with where working families and the majority of the people are. So either they get replaced, either there is a movement that says, thank you for your, what you've done, you're gone now. We need a new party that represents working people, or else they hang on so tightly that they force the creation of another party, which is not easy in the United States.
No, it's not.
It's easier in the UK and other countries. But the current leadership of the Democratic Party is, as I mentioned, New York State is a perfect example, where there should be enthusiasm and excitement. There is fear that working-class people, that ordinary people are going to get involved and threaten the existence of the, of the leadership here, their power.
When I read about like the history of the world, I am.
I sometimes worry that this is the natural conclusion, right? It feels like globalization was the thing and the corporations got rich. And, you know, money gets centralized, a few people get everything. And then that leads to strife and turmoil, that strife and turmoil leads to populism. That populism oftentimes, if we look at history, then leads to some of the worst periods. And that's when people like Bernie Sanders actually get listened to. That's when, that's when people are most likely. How, how do you, how do you think, how do you think people break through in this moment? How do we, how do we break through before it's too late? Like, how do we break through before it's world wars and before it's massive recessions? And before people are literally scrounging for scraps?
Let me go back, I should have said this a moment ago in response to your good question about the Democratic Party. I think the Democratic leadership is way out of touch. The dilemma that we face right now is, I think there's got to be, for the moment at least, something like a united front between progressives like myself and Democrats in order to defeat Trump. Okay, so we're fighting two fights. We're fighting to either open up the Democratic Party to become a working class party or start a new party. But at the same time, it is absolutely imperative that we keep our eyes on Trump, who is clearly moving this country into an authoritarian society.
Okay, so we got two fights on our hands. And that's the, that's the political moment that I find myself in.
How, how are they out of touch? I don't, I don't understand that. So let's use the, the Mamdani example. For me, for me, it seems like a simple one, right? Andrew Cuomo gets trounced, like he gets trounced in a way where on the night he can go home. He doesn't have to delay anything.
Right.
Generally, that's a trouncing in politics. To your point, in my head, in many people's heads, you'd go, okay, it's obvious. And this seems like the popular route to go down, which is what politics is supposed to be, as in like, popular of the people, the people are choosing what they would like, right? How do they not see that, do they, what do they say to you when you're talking to them? What do they not see that people see?
It's not a question of not seeing, do not, these are not dumb people. And that's the first, oh, people don't understand, they understand everything. These are not dumb people. They have power. And they want to keep their power. And they are what Mandaani has done and what I have done in past presidential election is to threaten that power. So if you're sitting, if your power base is that you can raise a whole lot of money from wealthy people, you go to nice cocktail parties, you walk out with a hundred thousand dollars, you can hire a consultant, the consultant puts thirty second ads on television, that's your world. And then somebody else comes along, Mandaani or somebody else, and mobilizes tens of thousands of people, doesn't ask the rich for campaign contributions. That is a real threat to your existence. Okay?
That is the bottom line. And the pity of it is, these folks are not evil people. The democratic leaders that I know, they are certainly not dumb people. But they are more interested in clinging to power than to allow, to support a grassroots mobilization which has the potential to transform America. They become an impediment to that process.
You know, it's funny, when you were saying that, I was thinking about the entertainment industry. And I look at the shifts that are happening in the entertainment industry, they mirror a lot of what you're saying. For so long, Hollywood had a centralized idea of who said what and who got to say it. A few people decided who was in a movie, who was on TV, and who got famous.
That's right, that's right.
And they did this for so long, and they squeezed so hard, that from the cracks of that little squeeze of theirs, you know, from the crevices of their fist, new media started emerging, new talents, new voices, you know, and so, in the world of podcasts, it was the Joe Rogans, in the world of streaming, it's like the Kai Sannats, etc. And you see this happening everywhere. And they have now lost the ability to define. And funny enough, they've come around, so now if you want to promote a movie, you have to go on, you know, a streamer's platform. If you want to get somebody pushing your content, you have to go on YouTube now, you have to go. So the power is slowly moving in that way to the people.
But it seems like Hollywood sort of understands it, and I don't know if they'll change, but it seems like they understand it. When you talk to
Democrats who are establishment and they they go, this is the way it is.
Is there anything you say to them that that that convinces them? Is there any moment where you've seen them go, ah Bernie, you're right?
Well, you do see that, actually, that, you know, uh, you know, polling.
They're not oblivious to polls and what polls show is that people like myself, A, are popular, but more importantly, that the ideas that we are talking about resonate extraordinarily strongly among working people. So I ask you, the United States, the richest country on earth, is the only major country not to guarantee health care to all people. How many Democrats do you think are talking about the need for a Medicare for all? Well, I introduced the bill in the Senate. We got, I think, fifteen cosponsors out of
Fifteen?
Out of forty-seven. Why would you not be prepared to take on the insurance companies? And move to a cost-effective, quality healthcare system guaranteeing healthcare to all people? Well, it's the power of the insurance companies. For years, you know, we've been fighting to lower the outrageous cost of prescription drugs. You know what the American people are? They hate the drug companies probably more than anything in the world. They really do. They're getting ripped off every day. They know it.
Have the Democrats, they've done a little bit in fairness, but have they gone anywhere near as far as they should?
Here's something, and I'm talking about basic necessities like healthcare, medicine. What about education?
Psychologists tell us that zero through four are the most significant years of human development, intellectually and emotionally. In the richest country on earth, don't you think we would have the best childcare system in the world?
You'd hope so.
Well, you tell me. I don't know if you have any kids or not, but
No, I don't, but I I have friends who do and I'll, I mean, it's pretty obvious that it's not. It's far from it.
It's outrageously expensive.
And the and the workers themselves get paid, you know, starvation wages. Here's something that's, again, quite remarkable and showing the direction which the country is going. You ask me, you know, because I am gonna be eighty-four, you know, what the world, the changes that I've seen in my life.
When I was a kid, young man, graduated James Madison High School here in Brooklyn, New York, and I went my first year of college to Brooklyn College.
Do you know what tuition was back then?
Oh, I feel like you're gonna shock me.
I'm not gonna shock you. It was, if it wasn't then or a few years before, it was tuition free.
Oh, that shocked me.
Does it shock you really?
Yeah, that really shocked me. I thought you were gonna say like, maybe a few thousand dollars or something.
City University of New York.
You just said tuition was free, Bernie.
Yeah, that shocked me.
Yes. Are you shocked by that?
That's, that's shock, that's shocking to me. That it was free?
Free!
University of California, one of the great university systems in the world.
That's shocking to me.
That was, I don't know, the exact year, sixty years ago, seventy years ago, it was tuition free. Yeah, you're looking at me like I'm, I'm, you, you, you're, you're at a state of shock here, right? It was, because at that point, you know, people said, okay, you know, you're working class kids, we want them to get the best education they can, we're a growing nation. We need, you know, the best educated workforce. Sure, no big deal, that's what we're gonna have. In fact, City College, before it was the City University, it was tuition free for a very, very long time. And it was one of the great universities in the world.
Hmm.
It wasn't some dumpy place. In Vermont, we had state colleges that if you were a Vermonter, tuition free. And again, all over the country. So we have regressed in saying that if, you know, some nineteen year old kid goes to college today, doesn't have any money, leave school fifty, seventy thousand dollars in debt, go to medical school, come out five hundred thousand dollars in debt. All right, all that I'm saying here is that the entire system broadly defined, economic and political, is working phenomenally well for the people on top. It is screwing working class families who are struggling and in many ways are in desperate shape.
Yeah, and what's, what's sad about that is all of the information that comes out, as you said, is oftentimes coming out from media that's attached to those people.
So they'll say the stock market is up.
They'll say GDP is better than ever before. They'll say it's up and to the right. And the weirdest thing for me, for people to understand, and I mean, it took me, it's not like I studied economics, I had to go and read and learn, was to realize GDP is one of the strangest measures of how well the place is doing, because... We can be in this room right now. If Elon Musk walks in, the GDP of this room is doing insanely well. Do you know what I mean?
The three of us together.
Oh, the three of us together. We are the wealthiest people that have ever lived.
Elon leaves, not so much.
Exactly. All of a sudden it goes down. And I think that's what, that's what a lot of people don't seem to understand. And, and, and I wonder like, I wonder if, if that is part of the problem is people are being sold the success of the idea of an American corporation or company as if it's their own, but it's not really attached to them.
The answer is yes and no. I think that's part of it. Oh, we all can. You work hard, you're gonna make the American dream, something you'll become a billionaire as well. I think people believe that less now than they used to. But here's what I think Trumpism does very well from their perspective. Trump is a demagogue. What does that mean? It means that he is smart enough, and he is nobody's fool, to recognize that people are hurting, all right? That the system is not working. So if you're in the average person and you can't afford to pay your rent
or send your kid to college and you're hurting, you want an explanation. Why is that? Right? It's kind of natural. You want to, why is the world the way it is? I think everybody really searches for an answer. Trump has an answer. And his answer as a demagogue is the answer the demagogues have always given. And that is you place the blame on powerless minorities, right? In the 30s, in Germany, it was the Jews were the cause of mass unemployment and so forth and so on. Gypsies. In America, there were problems in our schools. It was the gay people who were the problems. It caused the problems. Uh, you know, for many years in this country, you know, if you're a white, working class person, well, the reason you're not making more money
is the blacks taking your job. Nothing to do about it.
In the UK, they blamed people from, you know, they were like, oh, it's the Polish. And they said, it's Pakistan, and it's India. It's always moved a generation.
You're picking Jews. I mean, they must sit around and say, who do we blame today?
And it works because people are hurting. And then you have the entire media structure saying, well, it's the fault of the undocumented people. In this country, it's the undocumented now. So we're gonna throw them all out. And we're gonna make life miserable for them. Alright, thank God, my life is gonna improve. That is, that is what oligarch, that is what, not only oligarchies, but it's what demagogues do, and that is Trumpism in spades. That's what he's doing. So he's, what he's doing, rather than, I was at his state, it wasn't only at his inauguration, I was at his State of the Union speech. Guy gets up there, gives one of the longest State of the Union speeches in history. Did he have one word to say about the healthcare crisis in America? Hmm, no.
Did he have one word to say about the housing crisis in America? Hmm, no. One word to say about the high cost of prescription drugs? No. One word to say about how college is unaffordable? No. What did he spend his time thinking about? He spent probably 10 minutes on blaming, on describing how a trans, so, whether this is true or not, who the hell knows? But his description was a transgender athlete in a volleyball game smashed a ball into a young woman's face and hurt her. We heard that, right? One of the great crises is what happened on a volleyball court to one young woman. Okay, and the rest was terrible crimes.
And they were committed by undocumented people against young women. Okay? Because we know, and then the verbiage thoughts. They're not really human. Hmm. Trevor, they're really not. They are, they're subhuman people. I mean, and it's almost language. They're poisoning, quote unquote, poisoning the blood of America. These are people who don't share human values. They're savages, I think is the word to describe.
Well, that terminology sound familiar? We've heard it before.
Alright, when you demonize a person, and you make that person less than human. Is not telling what you could do to that person. And then that is, if you go after those people, that is improving life for everybody else. So that's the big lie. That's what demagoguery is about. That's the move to authoritarianism. And that is what I stay up nights worrying about.
You know, when I was reading through the book, one of the things I hope, I hope really gets to people is something that oftentimes isn't, isn't front page because it's boring. And yet it's front page in everybody's lives. And it's how the consolidation of power comes to cost you at home in your life. You know, and you, you talk through like food, for instance, in America. And how all the meat is basically what four companies?
You know what I mean? And I, I just want you to walk me through that because I, I, what you do really well in the book is, is you break down why this is a problem. Because some people would go, well, Bernie, I don't know what your issue is. It's consolidation and, and what it does is it enables a company to work more efficiently. They love that it's more efficient and it means we can expand our capability and we can get out there and, and lower prices for all Americans. What's, what's so wrong with only having four major companies that control all the meat in and around America?
Well, what's wrong is that in capitalist terms, uh, there is minimal amount of competition. And if you think these guys are not, you know, working with each other to keep prices artificially high, they are. So what the theory of capitalism is some new upstart comes in, produces the product, uh, at a lower rate. People are going to go forces prices to go down. That's, it's a good theory and occasionally it works. But right now, whether it's big tech or major industry after major industry, uh, that is not the case. They are controlled by large conglomerates who can control prices to a large degree.
Uh, and, uh, how they treat their workers.
It's not just that, it's also. Terrifying for diseases. Because you know, if you look at like some of the biggest diseases that have that have gone through the US like in the in the food. It's oftentimes because it goes through one plant, it goes through one company. You know, it's not, it's not one area that gets affected like the baby food was an example of that. Um, I remember when there was a baby food shortage, I I read through the story and I was like, what is going on here? How can there be a baby food shortage in the United States? Come to find out, there's basically almost like one company that's running the baby food. And if their plant gets one contamination, every single mother in the United States now doesn't get baby food. And then you can't bring more baby food into the country because they've lobbied correctly
to make it so that you can't import baby food. It it feels like a like this, this, it's every time you read about these things, it feels like it's a never ending story of impossible mountains to climb. And then I I found myself thinking, I was like, where does Bernie get the energy? Genuinely, I was like, you, you eighty three years old and not once have I ever seen you be like, well, that's all folks, I guess we tried. I I genuinely know, wanna know from you like on a personal level, like what what keeps you hoping and then what keeps you pushing? What do, what do you see that many people don't when they, when they give up?
I will tell you what I see. And it's um, uh, it's part of this fighting oligarchy tour, some of which I did with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Greg Gazar from Texas, others. Um, I have, I am extraordinarily fortunate as as someone who has been to every state in this country. And I say this not to be rhetorical or to be overly romantic here, but I have met so many unbelievably wonderful people. Uh, you know, and I have worked with local unions where you have blacks and whites and
Latinos standing together, taking on corporate greed. I have talked to young people uh, who have a vision for this country that is so different uh, than the one of today, which is based on greed and selfishness. They want a very different America.
So talking to a lot of young people, talking to working people, it really does inspire me. Uh, I, you know, I was, you know, if you go to a rally as we had, I describe it in the book. If you go to a rural area in California, Folsom, California, have you heard of Folsom, California? I've never heard of Folsom, California, no. All right. How I had heard of Folsom, many of your viewers will have heard of it. That's where Johnny, Johnny Cash did a song, Folsom Blues. So a prison, it's a prison, big prison there. That's all I had heard of Folsom. It's a rural area controlled by Republicans in the Congress. We have 30,000 people coming out. It was an insane thing. I mean, people was all over the place. Into LA, there were 36,000 people. Denver, 34,000 or something like that.
And you see that energy of people saying, you know what? We want real change. How can you not walk away from that and say, whoa, man, we can do it. We can do it. And then I talk to kids and that also inspires me. So the advantage that I have as somebody who's been to every state in the country and have the opportunity to talk to, you know, in this particular tour, we've been now to over 20 states. We did 35 events. I've talked to over 300,000 people. That inspires me. That gives me the energy to keep going.
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You said something a while ago that has stuck with me for years, actually. And it was in and around one of the elections. You were talking about how people should campaign. And you said, and I'll paraphrase you, forgive me, but you said something to the effect of... We need to stop focusing so much on basically selling it as a race issue and selling it more as a as a as a living wage issue, as a survivability issue, as a and I remember at the time, some people didn't get what you were saying. People were like, no, but this but this is a race thing. And it's funny because it took me back to, you know, some of the things that happened in and around the civil rights movement, whether it was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., etc., who said basically that, oh, poor doesn't know a color.
You know, poor, do you think that that's been some of the problem in in the way politics, especially in the Democratic Party? It feels like a lot of the Democrats who go out there will spend a lot of time being like, black people, come on, you you're good, you're black and Latinos, Latinos, but but they don't seem to go into the heart of what the issues are.
And that's not an accident. Okay, so you have, what's his name? Uh, I can't remember his name now.
To answer your question, what you're talking about is identity politics.
Okay, so we are so proud that for the first time, we have a judge from this state who is black, Latino, Asian, you name it. Really? We have a woman this, we have a gay that. That is, look, all of us want to see, um, parts of our society have good representation in Congress, and we're making some progress. Donald Trump has surrounding him a whole lot of women. There are right wing women governors all over this country, right?
Are we all very proud? Oh, man, thank God, we got a woman in politics who does not believe in woman's right to control her own body, who, you know, is terrible to workers and so on, but we're proud that she's a woman. The issue is, and this is what I meant earlier, Democrats have retreated from class issues, from economic issues, from a desire to take on big money, to, oh, isn't it wonderful? We have a woman here and we have a gay person here and we have a black person here and a Latino person over there. And King, you remember now, want to hear how old I am? I was in Washington for the March on Washington, King's March on Washington. I heard Dr. King speak. You know what that march was called? It was called, if my memory is correct, Jobs and Freedom.
Jobs and Freedom. Jobs actually went first.
King understood that exactly as you described it.
What good, and he would, this is what he said. He said, what does it matter if a restaurant, which was segregated, is opened up? If you don't have enough money to afford the damn hamburger, right?
All right, so you got to open housing, that's great, you can't afford the rent. So, for a myriad of reasons, some of which we have discussed, the Democrats have chosen to say, isn't it great, we have a woman this, we have a gay that, black that, rather than saying, hey, we got an economy that works for all of us, not just the few. That all of our people are earning a living wage, all of our people have healthcare, all of our kids, regardless of color, are able to get a good quality education. That together, we're taking on climate change and creating jobs to save the planet for all of us. So, to some degree, look, it goes without saying, there has been discrimination, as everybody knows, bigotry all over the place.
And we got to fight that every day, and we got to open up the process to all of our people. But it's not just that somebody is a woman candidate or a gay candidate. What do they stand for?
What do you think people misunderstand about class and classism? You know, I asked this because I remember one day reading a book, I forget who the author was, but it was a really poignant line, and it basically said, I cannot wait for America to get over racism, because racism is the first stage, and then they will discover that classism is what they've been fighting all along.
Good, that's right, because today, when we talk about the working class of America, who do you think we're talking about disproportionately? Disproportionately, I mean, there are millions and millions and millions of whites in the American working class disproportionately, it's black, it's Latino. And women, as a matter of fact. The class issue, though, you see, is, if you're the head of a large corporation, likelihood is you have a good education, you have gay friends, maybe your wife or your girlfriend has had an abortion, right? You're tolerant on all of those issues, you don't stay up nights worrying about black people getting a job. But what do you worry about? What you worry about is that you may have to stop paying your fair share of taxes, that
you may have to stop paying your workers a living wage, and you will fight that. So I find that many of these quote-unquote great liberal corporate types, we struggle with them to make sure that they respect unions, or they allow unions to be formed, etc. But at the end of the day, in my view, Trevor, if we're gonna transform America, which is the question on everybody's mind, how do we do it? It has to be a mass movement of people, it has to be a growth in the trade-union movement. And, you know, that is the way forward, and that's what we're working on.
Do you think democratic socialism is the dirty word that it once was in America today?
No, it's actually quite popular among young people, and I think despite the fact that no one quite knows what it means. I mean, I think what increasingly people do know is that you have countries, for example, in Scandinavia.
You've got Norway, Denmark, Sweden. If you go to those countries, the most right-wing politician would not for a minute suggest that healthcare is not a human right.
Yeah, yeah. A lot of the time, their right-wing politics is more about the politics of other, but it doesn't question the classist ideals that the country holds.
It doesn't question their, what they call their social welfare system.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they believe that's the bedrock.
Right, and nobody questions that, you're right. And the right wing will play off, you know, against immigrants and so forth. But in those countries, healthcare is a human right. Higher education is often free, childcare is often high-quality, free, workers earn quite good wages, unions are much stronger than they are in the United States. And I think a lot of young people especially are looking around and say, "How does that happen?" You go to Germany, you go to a great college, you're not in debt. And in this country, you know, you're fifty, eighty thousand dollars in debt. So I think, without even getting into the essence of what socialism is, means, which to me means democracy, by the way, not just the right to vote every two or four years, but having a say on the job.
Wouldn't life be a lot better if you weren't just a cog in the machine? And we're seeing, by the way, one of the nice things we are seeing in America, in Vermont, pretty strong about worker-owned companies, where workers themselves own the companies, select their own leadership. And what all of the study shows, that people feel much better about their job. You know, the absenteeism is less, productivity is up, people are good, it's our company, pretty good.
Could there could there ever be laws written to sort of entrench those types of ideas? And and I know even saying that right now sounds crazy to most people. But but the other day I was thinking about I was thinking about sports. And I was going, I know you're an avid basketball player, you know?
Avid might be too strong, but I played a lot of basketball.
I've seen you shoot Bernie. I've seen you shoot. You you you drain them. Like I remember when it was in the primaries, you would go to the gyms beforehand and you were just like, yeah. I I found myself thinking about how sports. And everyone who watches sports seems to understand in a basic concept of fairness. And this is what I mean. Shaquille O'Neal comes into the NBA. The man is completely dominant. You throw him the ball, he puts it in the hoop. You throw him the ball, he puts it in the hoop. You can't do anything to him. He stands under that rim and he puts the ball in the hoop. And then they change the rules of the game. They say. You know what? You can't stand in the paint in this little section. For longer than, what is it, three seconds, I think it is? Yeah. And they go, you have to keep moving. Why?
Because otherwise Sha can just do this forever and it's not fair.
And and I look at this in every sport. In fact, golf, you know golf might be my favorite sport. Not I don't play it. I don't like playing it, but I love the rules of golf because golf. Contrary to who people would like, the people who play it. Is one of the most egalitarian fair sports that has ever been created. It's it's the only sport where you can come in. As a terrible golfer and you can beat the best golfer in the world because the handicap system acknowledges. That your position coming into the game should be accounted for. In order to get you to a level playing field as somebody else. Like that always blows my mind. Do you know what I mean? And I I I wonder if. Politics can get to that place. Is it? Is it a crazy thought that I have?
That you could write laws that say people should own a piece of companies if they work in it or?
Look. It is not a crazy idea and there are countries around the world. To some degree already doing that. Look, is it a crazy idea?
Nineteen forty eight, right? Few years ago.
In Great Britain, a Labour government said healthcare, nineteen forty-eight, healthcare is a human right. I don't care if you're rich, you're poor, you're young or old, you go to the doctor, you don't take out your wallet. In the early seventies, Canada said the same thing all over the world. That could be a law signed tomorrow by the President of the United. And think, Trevor, for a moment, what that would mean. We got half a million people go bankrupt every year because of medical bills. People don't die, people die because they don't get to a doctor on time.
Do you know how transformative that would mean if people go to the doctor when they wanted to, if they weren't worried about going to a hospital and not coming out bankrupt? A lot of people have cancer, getting cancer treatment today, they're gonna go bankrupt. You know that? That's a fact.
Okay. What would that mean? If we made sure that every parent in America knew that his or her kids were people who got all the education they wanted, great schools, what would that mean?
Just do the, forget anything else, not to mention having wages which were livable. Is this a radical idea? It is not a radical idea. Okay. Well, what the system tells you, and that's what drives me crazy, and I try to get into it in the book. The system tells you this is communist, this is, I mean, you got, you know, this is impossible to, why? What's crazy is not that everybody has healthcare, it's crazy that Elon Musk owns more wealth than the bottom fifty-two percent of households. That's crazy. That's how we gotta rethink things.
How crazy is it to think of the possibility that another political party is what will help America? Because you, you know what it's like from the inside. Is, is it, is it absolutely out there?
No, it's not. It, it may well happen. Um, the two major parties are deeply, deeply flawed and in many ways out of touch with ordinary people. Republican Party has become right-wing extremist. Democratic Party is corporatist, tinkering around the edges. And there's a hunger for real change. If the Democratic Party can't deliver, I think there is a real possibility that there will be a third party. Problem is that in this country, to start a third party, being on the ballot in fifty states, to overcome all of the regulations, anti-third-party efforts in, in states is very difficult. But it's certainly a possibility.
You don't think it's impossible? And what?
It's a, no, it is not impossible by any means. It could happen, it could happen.
So when you look at the Democratic Party today,
what would you change if you could change something tomorrow? What, what would you say to all of your, your colleagues who have been with you? Where they say Bernie, we are on your side, but we just don't. Well, what's, what's the one thing you would change?
Well, I would, what I would make it clear is that we are prepared to take on uh powerful special interests in the corporate world and the oligarchs. And that means a strong progressive tax system, which has to Mr. Musk and to uh the corporate world that they're gonna have to start paying their fair share of taxes. Okay, that's number one. And by the way, widely popular, people understand the need for that. You need campaign finance reform. If you want to run for office, we need public funding of elections. Uh, and uh ending these super PACs, Citizens United. You need healthcare for all.
Let's, let's pause, let's pause and go back on that one. I, that's, that's a really interesting idea. Public funding for elections. Let's talk about, let's get into that.
Like, let's break it down. Like, why is that so important? What do you think it provides us?
It provides people who don't have a lot of money and who are standing up for the working class to run for office and to get elected. Under the present circumstance, you want to run for governor? I'm gonna run for governor. I have a super PAC behind me that's prepared to give me fifty, a hundred million dollars. I will beat you nine times out of ten.
Okay. But if the ru, the laws are, then in order to get on the ballot, I need to have at least X thousands of small contributions, right? And if I do that, I will, they will, I will get public funding for my elections, can only spend a certain amount. That's the rule. I will beat you. In other words, it's a playing, equal playing field.
I can demonstrate that I have strength, can get on the ballot.
It's like salary caps in a way.
Yeah, right. That's right. That's right. Exactly.
That's what they do in, in the, uh, Major League Baseball, right?
Yeah, Major League Baseball, uh, you know, basketball, football in the UK.
Yankees can have ten times more money than the Red Sox, right? You wanna beat me? Good. Let's do it fair fight. Ten million dollars each, that's it. It's unfair if I have a hundred million dollars, cause I'll always beat you.
Do you, do you worry though, that those types of systems are limited by how well the government is running at that time? And this is what I mean. I love that idea and I've always been pro it. But then sometimes I go, oh man. If the people running have to get their campaigns funded by the government. And then the government is in the hands of somebody like a Donald Trump. Who then pulls every lever as we've seen. I mean, like, Donald Trump has made me think a president is way more powerful than we were ever told they were. You know, like when, when Biden was in power, when Obama was in power, they always said, oh, there's only so much a president can do.
And then Trump goes, no, no, no. There's everything a president can do. This man has spare keys that open doors I didn't even know existed, you know? And so I wonder now, in that system, do you ever worry that then it means the government is in control of who can get into a race? How do we find the balance?
Well, look, there's always manipulation and illegal activity. But everything being equal, and it exists, it exists here in New York City. You have public funding of elections that exist in other states. Not a whole lot, but it does exist. Bottom line is, if you can demonstrate, I mean, each state and, and community will do it differently. But if you can demonstrate you have a certain amount of support by getting X numbers of small contributions. So you're not a, a flake, hey, give me nine million dollars, I'd like to work in New York City. You gotta show support. I think that can be administered fairly. And I think that's the direction we've gotta go.
Public funding, the next one you were gonna say was?
Oh, well, I mean, it, it essentially make the American people know. That our goal is a vibrant democracy, making it easier for people to vote, not harder. And making it clear to people that government can act in ways to improve their lives. So it's what we would call a progressive agenda. Whether it's healthcare, education, a fair tax system, you know, dealing with many of the crises that we face, climate change, et cetera. But what I think people don't see is an agenda that they can nod their heads to and say, yeah, that makes sense to me.
I want to support candidates who will move us in that direction.
We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.
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One of the things that people always use against you is they'll say, "Well Bernie, you say all these things, but your bill doesn't get support." Or, "Bernie, you say this, but you can't bring the Democrats along." And I was wondering about this the other day because we have these blips and these moments where some of the most progressive politicians come out and they always bring up your name. So whether it was AOC or now you have Mamdani, they'll say, "Oh Bernie inspired me and I'm now doing this because of Bernie." And it made me wonder, to borrow from basketball, is like, when you came into the game, were you trying to be Michael Jordan who wins all the rings? Or do you think you were trying to be like Allen Iverson who changes how the game is perceived?
A lot of more Iverson.
Look, what I have always believed is it's not a question of great leaders. It's a question of large numbers of people participating at the grassroots level. And Trevor, that is in fact how change always takes place, right? It's not one person. It's the leaders follow the people. If you had millions of people saying, "You know what? You're running for office, you damn well better give me healthcare as a human right. And I want that in the first month of your presidency." You know what, millions of people say, "You'll have it." If people are dormant and not active, they won't. So our job is to create that kind of movement around a, an agenda that speaks to the needs of working class people and
an agenda that is really prepared to take on the oligarchs.
You know, I was, I was wondering about, when I was, when I was looking through your history, and I see all these pictures of you at rallies, at gatherings, like throughout time, you know, being arrested, you name it. There's, there's one thought that came to my head. I was like, man, I wonder if part of the problem, and not the only problem, but just like one of the problems that, you know, progressive politics has in a way, is that progressives are very distracted. And what I mean by that is, if, if I look at, you know, when I do comedy shows around the country and I go to what people will call a red state. I mean, to be honest with you, I've seen states have everyone in them, but they'll go red state. I'll find oftentimes people are more conservative. They, they go to church, they're in like tight knit communities, they're, they're in groups that bring them together around ideas.
And oftentimes, those ideas then spill into politics or they overlap somewhere and, you know? And it feels like progressives have less and less of that. They're watching their own TV, they're listening to their own music, there's no more big gatherings, no one's going to church and I, I, I wonder how much of that you think affects movements, you know?
You're right. There was a time, um, well, let me just tell you what we're trying to, I'm trying to do in my own state.
Um, we have had a, we're a small state. We only have six hundred and thirty thousand people. I have had, and we pay for this out of campaign funds, I think a dozen events, you know what they are? They are foul shooting contests and we give away free basketballs. Okay. And we've given away, you know, I don't know, well over a thousand basketballs, good, good basketballs, I should say. Why do I do that? Well, I'm one, I want kids to play ball and be active, right? Boys and girls. But you know what else we do? When we do those events, the whole community often comes out. So there'll be a hundred, two hundred people coming out into town, right? And people are getting together.
We have had now, too, we're gonna do this more often, we had a walk in Marastil, Vermont, small town. Do you know how many people took a walk, a couple of mile walk on a beautiful rail trail? Six hundred people. Six hundred people just went out for a nice walk. We had some music, we had some discussion, went out for a walk. We do dances. I'm a United States Senator that sponsors dances. And we have hundreds of people coming out dancing. Why do I do all these things? They're non-political. All right. There's no political, no partisanship, no nothing.
It is to bring people together in a time when we desperately need community. And what worries me very much, we didn't even get into it, and it's a huge issue, is AI and robotics. And some of these guys are almost prepared to replace humanity, if you like. And I worry very much that at this particular moment, for so many reasons, we need each other. We need each other, and we gotta come together. And when we come together, you know what? You talk to people, and again, you know, I go to, most of the rallies we've had have been in conservative areas. People understand the healthcare crisis, and they understand the education crisis,
and they understand the importance of us being there for each other.
Yeah. You know what I've never understood when you talk about the AI and robotics thing? Is I don't understand if I'm maybe too stupid to get it, or if the people who run these corporations have a different idea of what the world would be. Because I don't understand the end goal. They wanna build a factory full of robots, and the robots will do the work. The robots will pack the boxes, and then a robot will deliver the thing. And then a robot will be cleaning a house, and then a robot will be reading an email, or it will be responding to that email. And then an AI will be advertising, and then an AI will be responding to a social media post, and AI.
And then I go like, well, if all of this is just like a loop of the machines, when are people getting the money to buy your product?
Well, that's one of the issues.
Do you know what I mean? When are people actually involved in the equation?
I often use, and to be honest with you, it's an issue that needs an enormous amount of study, and I haven't had the time to get into it as deeply as I should. But this is what is pretty clear to me. Uh, number one, uh, robotics and artificial intelligence are going to replace millions and millions of workers in this country. Now, the contra argument is, well, Bernie, you're just a Luddite. You know, yeah, the blacksmith went out of business, right? But you had an automobile mechanic replacing them, right? It's an evolution. That's the way it is. I could be wrong. I don't think so.
No, it's funny you say that because we had Mustafa Suleyman on who, uh, found a deep mind. One of the first AIs that, you know, beat, um, the champion at AlphaGo and AlphaFold for the proteins. He said that on the podcast. He said, I don't know why everyone's lying about this. There will be a mass displacement of jobs.
Now, so that's number one, and that's kind of easily understood. Robot is going to do the job in a factory, not a worker. Uh, you want a, uh, uh, you're a young person and you want an entry level job. AI is there and you're not going to get that. That I think we can understand. What else? What are even the greater threats of AI? Again, something easily understood is that AI requires an enormous amount of energy, electricity and water. Okay. And you're seeing these data centers being fought in community after community. People's electric bills are going to go up for the privilege of getting, uh, losing their jobs.
All right. So you got what that does to the environment is, and a lot of young people are conscious about that. Then you got the, you got the other issue. You asked me why? And it's not just, your, your point is you're not going to have anybody making money to buy the products.
Yeah, I don't, I don't get why they're doing it.
That's a good point. But I worry even more about human action. I'll give you an example. In the, uh, I, my office is in the Dirksen office building in the Senate.
And it's just happened to me the other day. I go down to the cafeteria every now and then, and it's quite a good cafeteria. And the people behind the cash registers, they're really nice people. And I enjoy seeing them. I know them. I've known them for years. Well, guess what? What do you think is happening?
They're being replaced.
Cashless registers.
You got it. And you know what? I miss that. I know their families.
You know, I know a woman there who's been there for years. Grandson died. I heard about that. That's a human interaction. I used to be in Burlington Airport. I used to drive out, say hello to the person, pay my fee and all that stuff. What does it mean really deeply? You go to a restaurant, a robot comes up to you, says, you know, what's your order? Thank you. Gets cooked well, comes back. What do we lose without having that human interaction? Hmm. Is that something that we should be thinking about? So you go to a nursing home and you'll have robots turning you over, changing a bed.
Is that the same as having a smiling face and another human being there talking to you? So I worry very much. And these guys like Musk and Altman and all these guys, it's not their things. They are not what I've called terribly sociable people. They are into the point you raised, efficiency.
Yeah, it's all about efficiency.
All right, great. It reminds me very much of that well-known saying, the operation was a success. Unfortunately, the patient died.
You can have the most efficient operation in the world, but humans will become more and more alienated and more and more in pain. And already in America, we have a major mental health crisis. Everybody knows that kids are struggling. Covid was part of that, but it's more than that. So the goal is not just economics, is how do you create a human society?
Not easy, but those are the questions we gotta ask.
Yeah, I think in many ways, it oftentimes for me means we've forgotten the purpose of something. You know, like I remember watching you in one of the debates, this was when I was at the Daily Show, we'd watch all of it, obviously. But I remember turning to my team, this was when I was first in America, and I said, "How does anyone know what's real or not?" Because we had a fact checker in the building. But I remember going, "What is the point of this?" And they said, "Well, so that American people can watch." And I said, "Yes, but one politician can stand up there, say whatever the number they want." And if you're at home, you don't know which number is right or not, there's no, you know what I mean? I was like, "What is the purpose of a debate?" And then you extend that further, and I go, "Business is an example." Even when people talk about capitalism, I say, "Oh, capital," I go, "But yes, if you go back and even read it, what was its purpose?"
All right, good. Now you're asking a deep question.
All right, so you start off with, "What is the goal of human life?" Now you're getting pretty deep, right?
All right, is it to make, I mean, for the trumps of the world, you can lie, you can cheat, and you steal, and the goal is money and power, right? That's what it is, money and power, that's what these oligarchs love.
I don't know that most people are there. I mean, people want to be comfortable. But I think people want to live long, happy, and productive lives. Now, what the hell does that mean? But, you know, that's what I kind of think. But that's the kind of discussion that we have. Do you want this ultra-efficient society? Which, by the way, will make the musks of the world even richer than they are right now, and cost working people their jobs. Is that really? Who determined that that's the goal? Really?
You know, so.
Yeah, we've made it the only measure that defines how people are successful.
Exactly. So you have this insanity, which drives me crazy, and I mentioned in the book. Is you're a billionaire, you made your money, no matter how you made it, maybe you stole it, corrupt, whatever it may be, or you made it honestly. And you are a wonderful human being. And you are, think about this, a kindergarten teacher making, you know, you've been a teacher for thirty years, you're making fifty thousand dollars a year. You know what you are? In the Trump world, you're a loser.
Damn.
Imagine spending thirty years working with kids, you're making fifty thousand dollars. Meanwhile, you've enriched the lives probably of hundreds and hundreds of children, right? I think that's important.
Yeah. You know, it's funny you say that. I remember talking to someone who was um pro crypto and remember when NFTs were big, they were they were they were touted as the next new thing. Oh, NFT this, there was little monkeys and everyone was, do you have a monkey? I have a monkey. Everyone was like running around. And I was talking to somebody about NFTs and I said, you know what? I actually don't think NFTs are terrible, but it's interesting that you'll have that idea for digital art, but you won't have it for everything else in life because I I always thought it would be great if teachers had NFTs. Like, why shouldn't teachers get a tiny fraction from every child that goes on to do something in their lives? Because they've invested in you. They've gone on to do something. Shouldn't they get some sort of, it's it's, I always think it's crazy to what you just said. How many teachers go through their lives impacting, I wouldn't be here without my teachers.
And then I go, like, who are they? Where are they? Why do we not think about those people and giving back? But then I'm more than willing to pay a subscription to an app or to a service and, you know, to Jeff Bezos and Amazon Prime, Amazon Prime. I'll go like, yeah, of course I should pay him. But if you said to me, Trevor, pay your teacher a subscription. I mean, I don't know, that that seems a bit crazy. But it shouldn't be.
But then you're back to very basic questions. I mean, really deep stuff.
Who does more important work? Some guy who gets up four o'clock in the morning, looks at the stock market, sees what's going on in Japan, starts selling and trading stuff. You can make five million dollars in a day, right? Doing that, all that crap.
Or somebody who is a primary care doctor who's out on the countryside helping, you know, keep young kids healthy and alive.
We have got to, this gets back to a value system. It's in the midst of everything else.
The value system is backward. Teachers do, other teachers, primary care doctors.
You know, these are some of the most important people in our country.
Society stops functioning without them.
Of course it does.
They enrich us. So we gotta, you know, there's so much to rethink, but that's the kind of debate and discussion that we need to have, which is hardly ever having, and I'm glad to have the opportunity to at least raise some of these issues with you.
Before I let you go, there's one thing I wanted to ask you because I, I think it's really important.
Bernie Sanders, the man, was once Bernie Sanders, the boy. And when I look at the images of you and I've gone back and seen like footage of you on like a kids' show, talking about, you know, these ideas and these ideals and, and see you trying to inspire young people. I'd love for you to talk to young men who are disillusioned, young men out there who are isolated, young men who feel like the whole system has failed them and they're angry and they feel like nothing works. What, what would you say to them that isn't, you know, just a platitude? Because some people would just say to them like, oh, be your best self and do your thing. What would you say to them that they could do today in their communities and then their systems to try and make the world better because they feel so angry about what they're not getting?
People have a right to be angry. All right? The system is broken.
Just one, let me throw out my umpteenth fact here. Everything being equal, the younger generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents.
Buy their own home if they're lucky at a later age than their parents. People have a right to be angry. Young people have a right to be angry. Nothing wrong with being angry, but know who you're taking your anger out on. Be smart.
Okay. Okay, just don't lash out at anybody and everybody. And also understand what makes you happy and what makes you feeling fulfilled.
And my personal experience is that, you know, I always gotta fight it. If I isolate myself, I'm not out with people. Sometimes you gotta force, oh, God, do I really? You probably do that, right?
Do I gotta do the show today? Oh, please, give me an excuse. Bob, write me a note, right? I mean, it happens to everybody.
But, you know, ultimately, when you're out there on the playing field, doing what you're doing, you're with, at the end of the day, we are human beings.
I need you. You know what? You need me. We need each other.
That's the bloody world. And, and each of us, sitting back, looking at the, you know, bloody computer all day long, and AI and all that stuff, it ain't gonna do it, I don't think. You know, I'm not anti-technology, but, you know, you gotta, we gotta work together
Mm-hmm.
to figure out what makes us feel better uh, as human beings. That's what I would say.
Yeah. You know, to that last point, I was talking to my younger brother about this. Obviously, we play video games. I've loved it my whole life. And my brother said to me, do you think video games is the problem for young men? They stay at a video game screen all day. And I said, no, you know what? I find the differences, funny enough, to your point. It's the, it's the way the money has started to work. Back in the day, you bought a video game, you owned the video game, you played the video game, and it was done. Now, they give you the video game for free, and then they loop you in. And they start draining your money, and they start draining your money, and you see kids playing Fortnite, you see kids playing Call of Duty, and they just keep draining that money slowly. And they keep you hooked in an addictive cycle. And the worst thing, it's, I'm so glad you brought up the point about walking together,
going to community spaces and listening to music, shooting basketballs together, is because that's the thing they rob you of. They've made it so that you cannot afford to be part of a community. And if we don't find ways to get back to the idea of a park in Brooklyn, the idea of like a, you know, a little rec center, the idea of a basketball court, that's free for people to go and play together in.
Look, I played, when I was a kid, I did play a lot of basketball. You know where I played?
Aha, I got you.
You got me. I did. I admit it. I played, actually, I was on a very good team. We won the Borough Championship. Uh, we played after school in a after school program. A city of New York after school. You know what you cost? Nothing.
All right. Right now, you want your kids to be a basketball player. You know what you do? You know, it's all kind of private thing. Costs a thousand bucks a season or more or whatever. Every bloody thing is commercialized.
Everything.
And that's, you know, what we got to take on.
Well, Bernie, thank you for spending your time with us. I appreciate you.
Well, I, and let me just say this. Thank you for what you do. Uh, you allow your listeners and your viewers the opportunity to have hear a serious discussion about serious issues. So keep up the great work and thanks for what you're doing.
Thank you so much.
What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackel. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Harduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now.
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