Bernie Sanders on Billionaires, Healthcare and How To Get Rid of Trumpism | FULL INTERVIEW

foreign ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for coming please welcome my guest probably one of the most important Progressive voices in American politics today Senator Bernie Sanders thank you that was a rapturous report they really enjoyed that it does that does that happen everywhere you go sometimes not everywhere I work in the United States Senate so it's and do you get used to that level of kind of response depends on the audience but we have had some great rallies in my career 25 30 000 people coming out yeah and it's a beautiful thing so this is [ __ ] all for you but that's the difference who knew now let's get into the book is it's fascinating it's called why it's okay to be angry about capitalism what inspired you to write it well you know in in truth first of all I grew up in a family that did not have a lot of money so you know you learn what it was like every day but second of all as a senator and as a presidential candidate I had the honor and I used that word advisedly to go all over this country and speak to many many thousands of people and I don't usually hang out with the rich and the famous and we go into people's homes and we do meetings not as similar to this we sit down and say okay what's going on and people stand up and they tell us that they can't afford prescription drugs so they they can't make it on 10 or 12 bucks an hour they can't afford the housing you know that they need for their kids um and all of that eats up inside of you and you say you know what in America we are the richest country in the history of the world and we can do so much better and uh we have in our country now and we don't talk about this enough and I think if there's a point of the book it's not that everybody has to agree with everything I've written but we have to start discussing issues that to a larger degree we push under the rug we have three people in America own more wealth than the bottom half of American society yeah which is extraordinary isn't it it's extraordinary so you got these billionaires who they literally don't know what to do with their money they really don't they go off to outer space you know they're buying another Island you know they're um well Jeff Bezos case in point um it you know went into space with Captain Kirk so if you're but if you're so rich you're trying to make films come true like there's talk of him sending Michael J fox back in time so he can bang his mum then clearly but that's an indication that you have too much wealth what and what sorry to to what blows my mind is why why do you think was sort of a degree of morality doesn't kick in because if you owned tens of billions and you looked at America or the world and and didn't think God I could fix huge suedes of these why do you think that doesn't kick in that's a good question and I don't know the answer for sure but I think the people on top are really obsessed with greed look it's understandable everybody wants to have more money you want to live a good life that's natural we all do but if you have five billion dollars do you really need to step on people in order to get another five billion dollars how much money do these people need yeah and then you what it's not just inequality in terms of money these people use their money to maintain their power and the status quo and they're very smart at it so in my country at least you have billionaires owning the media and you have 90 percent of the American people getting media from eight multinational media conglomerates and they frame what we're supposed to be outraged at all right so you know somebody walks in some kid walks into a store and robs the store and we say that's a terrible thing that's criminal activity and God knows in my country there's somewhat gun violence that's terrible but what about Russell think about this for a second the CEO of an oil company or a Coal Company that knew who knew 60 years ago that carbon emissions were going to have a devastating impact on the planet they were told that by their scientists and you know what they did they lied they said oh well we don't really know there's a debate going on about what what carbon emissions will do they lied we have Drug Company Executives in America who are raising prices and and we pay far more than you do for prescription drugs but are raising prices so high that thousands of people die each year because they can't afford the medicine what do we call those people if a kid walks into a store robs it that's a criminal I think these people are bigger criminals and we have to deal with that reality definitely [Applause] thank you how do you do that because it feels I think you know most people kind of agree with that but like you say there are so many it's so entrenched yes it is in American society that if Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post that's right then you know he owns the way that the news is you got it Elon Musk now owns Twitter you're not billionaires on this it is tough stuff and they cannot the change is not going to come tomorrow but I think the way we bring about change is the way that real change has always taken place and first thought people have got to begin standing up and fighting back that's what they've got to do yeah and you saw that most extremely during the pandemic and which we're still in but the at the heart of the pandemic tens of thousands of workers in America and in the UK these were nurses these are bus drivers grocery store workers they go to work and many of them died yeah tens of thousands died the billionaire class became two trillion dollar richer during that period so I think it is high time to take a hard look at the structure the economic structure of society and the political structure because in my country at least these billionaires are able to contribute as much money as they want into politics and elect the candidates who will serve their interests it feels like people don't get outraged about that because the current stories that come out America are Superman's become a girl or Peppa Pig's got three sets of genitals or have you heard what they're doing with the kids books and it feels like there's that old saying is that find angry people tell them you understand their anger find something to point their anger at and walk away Russell I think you hit the nail on the head look if you are the establishment and if things are going better for you the top one percent than ever in American history you like what's going on it's great all right how do we deflect attention away from that reality how do we deflect attention that the rich are getting richer and you you and you are getting poorer well we entertain people in a dozen different ways yeah so you got television in the United States you could turn on cable television you got literally dozens and dozens and dozens of stations you everything in the world you can possibly want except talking about the reality of American Life who owns American life and how we can move in a different direction surely the way to do that is to write an amazing sitcom about American life and you have to put it through the machine that works you won't get it into a major Network what if we get Seinfeld and you'll get funny things Beyonce Seinfeld and Beyonce do a funny slash musical look at American Life still [Music] but but I guess I guess the point I'm I'm searching for is how do you get that message out well I'll tell you I mean social media is revolutionary yeah true but but we're fighting against people who can flip water bottles upside down but like you know you've seen that grown men and women get a water bottle and see if they can fling it to land on the bottom that will get more views than this all right but unless I flip you see feel that all right there you go next time that's the way we do it next time on Bernie and Ross I'll be back we could you can uh flip you yeah but I'll give you an example and where social media has been revolutionary uh I ran for president when we run for president again we do meetings three or four times a day uh all over the country and get on a plane go to someplace else and that's what we do and normally what would happen is you talk to a few thousand people and that's great maybe some local media will cover it that's great but with social media what we were able to do is live stream the events so an event in which there were 2 000 people would be seen by 200 000 people so for the first time in America people were hearing ideas that they never saw on the major networks and they saw people responding in a positive way so I think one of the important things that we did is through social media is break through the corporate Stranglehold on the limitation of ideas yeah that was significant and your campaign you didn't take money from kind of corporate interests or business did you no we didn't and that was also kind of revolutionary I mean one of the reasons that you don't hear the type of things that I talk about very much in American politics is because if you are dependent on corporate Pacs just so everybody knows a pack is a political action campaign as a result of a terrible Supreme Court decision in America today if you're a billionaire you can put hundreds of millions of dollars into a pack which can then you know know put advertising on against any candidate you want for any candidate you want so as a billionaire you have tremendous political power obviously we didn't want any of that money and we said well how do you run a a presidential campaign which is pretty expensive how do you do that and we decided to appeal to Working Class People for help and in 2016 we got millions of contributions averaging 27 a piece 2020 it actually went down to 20 a piece so Ordinary People nurses and and you know working class folks just contributed a few bucks and that enabled us to run strong campaigns because I guess if you're a politician you're elected by a business they become your stakeholder that's right you know so how close are you as a country being able to stop sort of lobbyists that feels like an impossible thing to do let me give you an example your point is exactly right look if I make a major contribution to yeah to me yeah you're a person okay if you want to run for the senator someplace in New York and I help raise 50 million dollars for you you're indebted to me right you want to listen to me um in terms of lobbyists you all know what lobbyists are all right again the terms in the United States may be a little bit different than him well obviously people who represent corporate interests trying to get their ideas and their needs through give you one example there are 100 members of the U.S Senate there are 435 members of the House of Representatives 535 members of Congress there are 1700 well-paid lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry in Washington DC wow isn't that extraordinary yeah and the result of that these guys have managed to create a situation where unlike the UK by the way they can raise prices to any level they want you go to a drugstore to buy your medicine prices double that it was last year no problem they can do it because of their power their money their lobbyists well let's talk about health care in the US because the NHS in the UK is struggling at the moment and it's because it's it's understaffed it's underfunded right it's kind of you know we have nurses that are going to Australia where you can get a better wage you know better working conditions and all these things so I think we as a nation it feels like we're struggling with the NHS probably for the first time collectively but we sometimes don't realize how lucky we are when we look at the the insanity of the the U.S medical system if your system is struggling I think the answer is to fully fund it but right now we spend thirteen thousand dollars for every man woman and child can you imagine a family of four fifty two thousand dollars a year average salary is I don't know fifty five thousand astronomical sum of money and yet despite that huge expenditure we have 85 million that's about a third of our country who are uninsured or underinsured now I'll bet you the many in the audience here because of your system don't even know what the word underinsured is what does that mean yeah exactly I have no idea so when you hear about the American system hear this most people get their insurance through their employer yeah some employers are very generous and they provide very good benefit many do not the average benefit more or less would be something else Russell you work for me get your wages and we're going to give you a health care benefit but there will be a ten thousand dollar deductible that means you have to spend ten thousand dollars out of your own pocket before Insurance kicks in so if you got hit by a bus that was a hundred thousand dollar bill Insurance Group today 90. but you got to pay the first 10. but if you're just sick right you say well I'm pretty pretty bad I should go to the doctor but you know what I don't have the 200 bucks that I need to go to the doctor you don't go to the doctor and the result of that is that over 60 000 Americans die every single year because they don't go to a doctor when they should wow then in addition to that all right so you got to figure out you got to pay you know the first whatever maybe sometimes it's a five thousand dollar knuckle sometimes it's fifteen thousand depends we got hundreds of different insurance plans all right then in addition to that most of the plans will say you go to the doctor you got a co-payment what does that mean if the bill is 200 bucks maybe you pay 20 maybe you pay 30 out of your own pocket so I have talked to many doctors in my own state of Vermont and all over the country who say people come into their office and they're really really sick and they say well why didn't you come in when you first had your symptom answer is I don't have any money I couldn't afford to pay the bill yeah in America today some 500 000 people go bankrupt because of medically related bills in other words you end up in the hospital God forbid with the serious illness you come out with the two hundred thousand dollar bill you can't pay it you go bankrupt your credit is shot because you can't pay off your medical bill and by the way top of all that our life expectancy in the United States is lower significantly lower than many other countries despite all that we spent so my thought is and this is one I feel strongly about I understand that the NHS is struggling now do not look to America oh yeah I think it's an example strength in the system and I want to say this also while I'm here in the UK your country in 1948 did something that was revolutionary and important for all of humanity what the labor government said in 48 when I Bevin leading it is that Health Care is a human right for all people not just the privilege that was a step forward for all of humanity absolutely thank you you've spoken a lot about the Scandinavian approach to healthcare for example and they have a similar approach to hospitals much better the prisons are far better because they you know recidivism yeah yeah exactly but again it feels like how do you get over the hump of the tax problem in the in the US particularly because it feels like as soon as you talk about you know help repairing Healthcare or Obamacare or Medicare whatever it may be straight away it becomes oh well you're just woke you're just a communist you you you want my kids to all wear the same clothes every you know it's amazing how quickly it's it turns into that argument one of the things Russell and I have noticed and again this has been an honor in my life well thanks same here being with you yes sir the honor I've had in my life is going around the country and you know when you speak to Ordinary People and not just the people who own the media they look at the world uh a little bit differently so when you talk about taxes you're right uh but if you talk to many of the people in Scandinavia for example they say yeah we pay a lot in taxes but you know what we get a lot in return Now in America we have for example a dysfunctional Child Care System yeah you know how much it costs 15 000 bucks at least to send your kid to child care all right so if you're a family making 50 or 60 000 that's pretty impossible unlike the quality child care they have in many of the Scandinavian countries Finland and elsewhere uh here's something that many people don't know all right you tell me you have a baby here in the UK what happens how much time off do you have to nurture the baby anybody you got nine months paid leave is that for both okay because in Scandinavia it's a year for both I know that oh you know how much it is in the United States guaranteed anyone know zero really that's the response I was looking for yeah unbelievable so the truth is and I've talked to see a low-income working-class woman maybe a single mom gives birth she's back at work in a week or two because she needs the income to take care of her family but then how does she afford the 15 000 to look after she doesn't she can't I mean that's the stress that is you thank you I mean that's exactly the issue the difference between poor and rich in America and I sure I'm sure it's not different here it's not that I have a big house and you're poor you have a small house I have a good car you have a you know broken down car that's not the difference the difference is you have got to worry every single day how you stay alive how are you going to pay your rent how are you going to eat what happens if your car breaks down and you can't get to work do you know what that stress does to you day after day yeah it rips apart your body absolutely and you die yeah you die younger even if you have decent Health Care you will die younger so what the Scandinavians have done and they they're not adults will be the first to tell you they're not perfect and let's not forget when you talk about how a society can evolve this is Scandinavia they used to travel the world pillaging and raping and now they recycle now that is like in terms of Journeys so we can change we can change [Applause] you can you know and just think here's the point you know we try to make austerity economics means that if you don't really work hard and you have a certain amount of luck you're really in deep [ __ ] that's the technical term we use in the United States and all that this book is about is saying they're given everything that's happening in this world the wealth the technology can we not take that stress in terms of survival off the backs of people what does it mean if everybody has these in healthcare can we do that yeah we can what happens if we move toward a situation where workers have more control over the work that they do interestingly enough there was just a study I don't know if you saw it that came out of the UK I think it was last week and what it said a number of companies experimented with a four day work week yeah and the results were really quite strong work has felt great about it they became more productive the quality of their lives improved their stress level went down companies felt good about it those companies are going to continue it as technology develops should we not be thinking about a 30 32 hour work week for workers [Music] thank you but how do we do it like my brain I was racking my brains again this is a first thought idea but I don't know if you've ever seen Darren Brown but the face says no but he's he's sort of a a trickster he's like a hypnotherapist do we get Darren Brown in front of some of these guys and no no okay just an idea look but how do we I guess I I'm you know what underlies everything that I believe is we share a common Humanity no matter where we live what country we live in what color our skin is what our sexual orientation whether we're men or women I think there's a common understanding of what a good life is about and we have got to bring our people together to stand up and say this world belongs to all of us and not just the few and what worries me so much is the people on top they're powerful not just in the United States they got their Pals in Saudi Arabia and they got their friends in China and you got this oligarchy all over the world with Incredible wealth and incredible power and Russia as well of course and our job is to organize to have a vision of a society which works well for all but it's not going to be a hypnotherapist that does it it's going to be it is going to be difficult I mean you know in your country in my country people have fought and died for human rights whether it's women's rights workers rights whatever it may be and that's the struggle that we have got to undertake um [Applause] [Music] you seem to have a degree of Hope and I'm Amazed by that given that you're at the coal face of misery because America is like Gotham with no Batman and I think specifically of someone like La I think La is a really good example of the Mad juxtaposition in America where you have hotels for dogs and and homeless people thirty thousand homeless people in La alone yeah like and and you know people who have jobs that they can't afford a house so they live in tents as a family and you see this you'll travel around L.A and it's mind-blowing to me like in this you know in such a wealthy part of America and it just feels like the left I think the world over has to take a degree of responsibility I've taken their their eye off the ball because they're getting weighed down in sometimes kind of inconsequential [ __ ] when there's real stuff going on because they're worried about the blowback if they don't talk about this tiny issue and I think like it's happened you know brexit's a big thing over here it didn't address one of the reasons that brexit happened is because a lot of people who are really struggling in this UK felt like they weren't being spoken to you have a similar situation in the U.S where bizarrely someone like Trump Speaks For the Working Man like that is totally bizarre right but there is a billionaire crook yeah who is now defined as a champion of the working class this is what I mean so how how has that happened because they haven't been spoken to you got it look look what you have is a situation where basically people are hopeless they've lost their jobs they don't have much hope for the future they're looking at a situation where everything's being worse their kids are going to be even worse off than they do and what do they do what do they do on that they turn to drugs we lost over a hundred thousand people to to overdoses last year alone they turn to alcohol serious problem and even turn to suicide all right and this is a rampant issue throughout the country so what our job is to give people hope by having government no longer ignore their needs you're right about brexit and it's the same thing with trumpism pretty much the same phenomenon if you're going through all of that pain and you don't see anything on TV you don't hear any of the politicians even talking about your reality they're busy raising money in some fancy cocktail party you say screw it why do I believe in democracy government is all full of [ __ ] it's not my life it's all going to come along and do a strong man like Trump he's loud Papa so maybe lies all the time who cares all right and what we have got to do is not only rebuild our economy to work for all we've got to restore faith in democracy you gotta those people out there who are hurting got to know we are responding to their needs we understand it we're fighting for them we're going to deliver for them you do that trumpism is dead yeah um there's one thing I don't agree with you on you don't say happy birthday to people have you read about this this monster won't say happy birthday to me happy birthday it's not my birthday but happy birthday when your birthday does come that's not how it works Bernie you can't send it I'm not good at it you're right I admit it see what happens you can't just take potluck hey one out of 365 right right it's like yeah it's like a really lovely version what that's about is when a birthday occurs at the Senate you go to zillions of these yeah oh happy birthday love you you know and you know that's fine it's okay but it's it's part of the process you know so I'm not too much into that some I I admit to being a little bit rude in that respect so so is that just that your your desire to make things better so visceral that you you just can't get involved in backslapping yeah I've done much of the backs I'm not a small talker yeah uh yeah and yeah that's about it and you know all right so to all of my colleagues in the U.S senator happy birthday [Applause] can I cover myself appropriately now I'll tell you what else I mean this is literally what goes on people have their staff not very hard say to your staff okay look up the birthdays of every members all published and on that day send them a card all right we don't do that I plead guilty I'm sorry well clearly because you've got you've got other things to do I meant like your children my wife is out there you're touching a very deep nerve here okay well I didn't mean to put you to pay us off with that and get on to the crises facing General Humanity yep I mean it's difficult not to want to go there have you never said happy birthday to you to your wife tip what about Valentine's you do Valentines she listed the first time she you squirted this is what the internet does to you yeah you read the article on the internet I didn't and I was wondering I asked for the obvious question why isn't Valentine's Day on a Saturday or a Sunday why is it on a Tuesday or Wednesday who could know that you know I don't know hard to beat imagine anyone who knew that I don't know I didn't so I plead guilty of that one too sure I love the fact that that's the only time you've looked flustered of focusing on the minutiae rather than the the macro is that just kind of yeah he doesn't say happy birthday and Valentine's and then if elected president we will eliminate Valentine's Day that's it [Music] there are a couple of female whoops there and listen I know the world's changed and all but get [ __ ] because I don't believe in Valentine's until it comes along and you don't get flowers sorry chapter um I I didn't realize I was sort of researching on you and you were there when Martin Luther King did the I Have a Dream speech weren't you there were George Washington at Valley Forge they don't know American history I got it all right no yes I was um Dr King I was a student at the University of Chicago we took a bus to Washington I heard that speech and King was an extraordinary man more than the media often portrays he was a very great American uh and you know people should really understand and appreciate the extraordinary life that he lived yeah and what does what does the perfect world look like for you in let's say 40 years how many years 40 40 how old are you you're 81. well look Let's do let's do 20. I would say one thing uh you know I don't know about a perfect world okay in 20 years one thing that I think is clear and what has been so really unspeakable for me and really horrifying is the war in the Ukraine and it's not just the horrible suffering that we're seeing in the Ukraine or the unnecessary deaths of tens and tens of thousands of young Russians it is that at this moment if we are going to combat climate change U.S can't do it alone UK can't do it alone China can't do it alone this is the situation where either we sink or we swim We're In It Together and Putin now dividing up the world because of this horrible invasion and the United States moving toward a cold war with China which worries me very very much so the one thing we have got to do in It Ain't Easy is to figure out once again how we bring the world together to cut carbon emissions to save the planet if you think this covet is the last pandemic we're going to see unfortunately it's probably not right we need to work together China is doing some important work in that regard we got to figure out how we are prepared much more effectively for the next pandemic can we develop nasal sprays which will keep people healthy Etc so bringing the world together is enormously uh important and dealing with this Global oligarchy and having people all over the world stand up to this handful of billionaires who have so much power is clearly the direction I would like to see happening in the next 40 years and that is the exactly and that is that's essentially what the book's about it's it's incredibly digestible and fascinating book about the state of America at the minute so congratulations it's really great have you met Greta tomberg I personally I have not now she's lovely um gosh she's a wonderful courageous young lady but you you two would really be mates but it's because I interviewed her recently and it's it's I sort of bring up that uh the word authenticity a lot and it's so interesting when you meet people um who are single-minded and know what they want and that's what's really fascinating about you that you've had all there's so many opportunities in your life when you could have been corrupted and gone to the dark you've been in American politics for a long time and somehow you're still Ben Kenobi like it's it's incredible um so thank you so much for uh for doing the interview ladies and gentlemen Senator Bernard [Applause] thank you [Applause]

Channel: Russell Howard

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Length: 35min 30sec (2130 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 10 2023