467 - Bernie Sanders

Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities, so do like I did, and have one of your assistance assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at MintMobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra feeful terms at MintMobile.com. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Tim Dylan show. The book is Fight Oleg Arkey, Bernie Sanders. It is out everywhere. You can get it on Amazon.com. You can go to a local bookstore, which is always a good idea. Support a local bookstore. And I'm sure the author of this book will appreciate that. Bernie Sanders, Senator, thank you for coming. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. This book, when you walked in, we talked about it is not big, but it is something you've been talking about for many, many years. What is the importance of writing this now? Because you just got off a tour with the same name about fighting Oleg Arkey. I think Tim, this is kind of an unprecedented woman in American history. And I think what the book touches on are issues that the media in general, my colleagues in Congress are not very comfortable dealing with. And that is power and wealth. Who owns the country? How's that? Pretty simple question. Yeah. Who really has the power? And what we are looking at right now is a moment in history where we have more income and wealth in equality than we've ever had. And I think what the American people have got to decide is whether they are comfortable with the situation in which one person, Mr. Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households. Is that really what America is supposed to be? Top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 93%. And while the very richest people in America are becoming phenomenally richer, 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. It's a huge problem. And I think that most Americans would hear those numbers and think that there's a big problem where you have one person controlling more wealth than 52% of the country, which is probably around 150 million people, maybe more. And that also is a huge problem for democracy. There's a huge problem for democracy. Trump, Kamala Harris, anybody in my lifetime that has been outside of yourself that has been a contender for the presidency, from a major political party is backed usually by the same groups of people. They're very wealthy, lobbyists, donors, the donor class is incredibly powerful. You know, the landmark Supreme Court decision to regard political donations as speech, right? Citizens United. Citizens United. Thank you. The name is Kate me. I can donate as much money as I want to account it and it's considered speech. That's right. Where did we go wrong? Was it always as bad as it is now? Many people with money always had power. But Citizens United, Supreme Court decision opened the door, incading a very corrupt, corrupt campaign finance system. And you said it all. Right now in the Republican party, Mr. Musk himself contributed $270 million to help elect Trump. And then he was given the opportunity to be the most powerful person in government for many, many months. Democratic billionaires play a very important role in selecting who the Democratic candidates are. And in a sense, through their money, kind of controlling what those candidates will stand for and what they will fight for. So the power of money right now today is extraordinary in both political parties. And if we're going to save American democracy, we've got to get rid of this, in my view, we've got to get rid of this campaign, this Citizens United Supreme Court decision. And you got to move the public funding of elections. So in other words, if you want to run against me, I shouldn't be able to out raise you 10 to one or 51. I do that. I'm going to beat you every time. All right. You show that you have support. You deserve a certain amount of public funding. I will get the same amount of funding. Go for it. Your idea is better than not mine than you in the election. Let's have campaigns based on ideas, not billionaires, but a huge amount of money at the ugly 30 second for the Supreme Court to reverse the Citizens United decision in your estimation, what would have to happen? Well, this Supreme Court ain't going to do it. We're going to have to the congressional action. We could do it through Congress. And how would you do it through Congress? Through legislation, basically, which says that you outlaw super PACs among other things. That's the first thing. Who are the main opponents of this in Congress? If this were to come on the floor, I'm not asking you to call out names. I'll call out names. Ms. McConnell was one of the leaders in the effort. Right. As a Republican. But the big money interests love this. Why wouldn't they? If you're a billionaire, you want to pick your candidate for president, hey, what's a few $100 million, Theo? It's a great, they love it. Money talks and they like that process. Is the Democratic Party in your view a bigger obstacle to your ideas becoming mainstream than the Republican Party? No. Look, the Republican Party in the last 15 years under Trump has undergone a major transformation. It used to be kind of a conventional George W. Bush, I sent the right party. Right. That's what it was. It represented the wealthy corporate interests banks, etc. What Trump has done is really transformed that party. He won, we're working class votes, then did Kamala Harris. And he has created in the Republican Party a right wing extremist party. And also worries me. It's not only their ideology is this cult of the individual. You know what I'm talking about? Right. Match that. Tell him explain it. But what I mean is look, it's one thing. You're a Republican. I'm a Republican. You're a Democrat. But we argue amongst ourselves. Your job is to represent your congressional district, your state if you're in the Senate. Right now in the Republican Party with very few exceptions and they're awesome. They follow what Trump says and they are afraid to move in any different direction. Give you one example, a very clear example. Guy named Tom Tillis. That name mean anything to you. Yeah. Tom is a conservative, you know, Senator from North Carolina. So the guy read made the mistake of actually reading this big beautiful bill that Trump brought forth. He concluded, he's going to be a disaster for North Carolina. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to lose their health care. Health care premiums are going to so I can't vote for this. The next day. Trump was all over social media attacking this guy and the billionaires were saying, we are going to spend unlimited amounts of money to defeat you in your primary. A day later, Mr. Tillis said, bye bye. I'm out of here. I don't need this crap. And you retired. You retired. Yeah. Because he was going to face a very, very difficult primary. And that's what it is right now. You are a congressman. You kind of disagree with Trump on this. Are you really going to open your mouth and have Elon Musk saying, okay, we're going to primary you. My guy's going to get $50 million right. My wonder is because I look at and I agree with you and everything you just said, 100%. The Republican parties become a cult of personality. When somebody goes, we're going to release the Epstein files and then they don't. And then everybody moves on. And then they go, what about you, me Kimmel? 100%. My question though is the climate in which because there's no doubt the Republican parties undergone a transformation. But also the Democratic party seems to have overgone, you know, undergone a similar transformation away from working people and towards college educated, you know, credentialed, you know, managerial types that, you know, have four year degrees, have graduate degrees, live in urban centers are more concerned with social politics. Then they are economic politics. And the Democratic party seems to have diverted a lot of energy from the economic message that you championed into kind of the social justice sphere, which is proven pretty unpopular with a lot of those working class voters that went to Trump. All right. Let me ask you by saying yes and no. Okay. How's that? It's a great answer. Great answer. Yeah. After all, I am a, you know, United States. What do you expect for it? Yes, it knows a good answer. All right. Let's thought it off. 50 years ago when Harry Truman was president, certainly when FDR was president, you walk out on the street, you say to somebody, which political party in America represents the American working class? Answer, Democratic party, right? Everybody knew that. Yes. That was the answer. In the 1970s, some Democratic leaders became very, very smart, you see. And they said, hey, Republicans are getting all of this money from corporations and the rich. What are we not going to our brains out? Why don't we do the same, right? Right. Let's start hustling some money from big money interest. And that began the process of moving the Democratic party away from the working class of this country. Now, when we talk about social issues, I think the Democrats deserve credit for fighting for women's rights, which I happen to believe is extremely important. The right of women to be able to control their own bodies. And through a lot of reasons, grassroots, grassroots activism, the women's movement and the Democratic party, we have made some real progress. You know, like 40 or 50 years ago, you looked at Congress, there were almost no women there at all. Yeah. Right. No women, governor's, et cetera. Right now, you got women who are cops, they're sheet metal workers. Yeah. They're United States. We have made progress. A Democrats deserve credit, but helping to do that. In terms of ending bigotry, look, I'm a little bit older than you, but I can't remember when I was a kid. No great secret. If you're black in the South, massive amounts of segregation, you couldn't drink at a bloody water fountain. Your kids couldn't go to an integrated school. You know, the civil rights movement, Dr. King, and others along with Democrats, Lyndon Johnson, et cetera, help end bigotry in this country. At least took us a long way ending bigotry. I think that's important. Gay rights. Hey, how many years ago, 30 years ago, will you ever believe that we have gay marriage in a month? No, I mean, and those things are all 100% very good things that happened. But I do look at the last election. And I think there seems to be, and you may agree, an outsized focus on cultural and social issues that to many people are a luxury and not to everyone, but to a lot of people, they are a luxury. Fair point. Fair point. Yeah. Okay. So the point is not that fighting for women's rights or ending racism in this country or homophobia. Those are good things. But if your point is that in that whole process, Democrats more or less turn their backs on the working class of this country and the enormous crises facing working people, I would agree with you. Chris Hedges, who's a writer, has described it as you have the Republican Party, which is a party about Ola Garkey, where you have very powerful individuals, some of them own companies, some of them run hedge funds or private equity or whatever it is. And they have tons of power. And the Republican party seems to have embraced that. You see all of the tech people lining up with President Trump. But Chris Hedges has described the Democratic Party as more of a corporation, where you have a lot of wealthy interests that have gotten together. And while it's not as unpredictable and chaotic as a bunch of different Ola Garks, it also emiserates the lives of people because the core economic concerns of the population on issues like healthcare, housing, aren't being addressed. Absolutely. So my question to you is, you know, for example, there are a lot of ideas that a lot of people can get behind. One of the things I think that hurts the Democratic Party is the perception of that party as not being fully competent when it comes to public safety. There's a lot of cities in America that are primarily run by Democrats that are cities that you would large swathes of those cities you wouldn't want to live in. There are tent cities. There are people out and using drugs and overdosing. And there is crime and there are home invasions. Businesses are fleeing those cities. And once vibrant city centers of places like Portland or San Francisco, although San Francisco is getting a little better now because of AI companies moving in. But once vibrant American cities have become places that people wouldn't want to live. And a lot of people associate that with Democrats experimenting with programs that get rid of bail or prioritizing someone's right to not feel like they're being, you know, they're right. They're being infringed on with the greater good of keeping the straight. And the worry with Mamdani, who I think says a lot of good things, the worry with him from a lot of people that I talk to is that he doesn't that his policies are going to increase crime in New York City. Because what he's going to do is instead of he's going to take money from the police and he's going to fund these, you know, people that are, you know, he wants people to go out that are not police that are not trained in the use of deadly force. And maybe they're trained in mental health, you know, or other schools of thought. And they're going to confront people. All right. Mamdani can speak a lot better for himself than I can. I'm supporting him. In fact, I'll be back in New York City, Sunday to do a rally with him. I hope you're going to much. I think he has the chance. Look, between you and me, governing any major city today is an enormously difficult job. You got to be a little bit crazy. You even want to take that job. Agreed. All right. But I think this is, I've gotten to know him the last few months. He is a really smart guy. He is very serious. The first time I talked to him, you know, we talked about when I was mayor of Burlington, Vermont. And he talked about governing. All right. How do we bring together the kind of organization, the kind of people that we need to be that have an effective governance? So I think some of what some of those folks are saying, I think he is very cognizant of the crime issue, very cognizant for the homeless issue. But we are dealing not only in New York City, but all over this country with very serious problems. You got 800,000 people who are homeless. Right. So what do you do? You got a serious drug problem all over this, you know, terrible drug problem. What do you do? Your point, I think, is a very valid point. Is the answer to allow people to be yelling and screaming and shooting up and downtowns all over America? Is that the answer? I don't think so. All right. Well, let's talk about what the answer is. In terms of the police, I think what some people are saying when we talk about police reform, police have an enormously important role. And I, when I was mayor of Burlington, Vermont, I got endorsed for the first time by the Patrolman's Association of Police Union, got endorsed again and again and again. I, you know, I work with the police. They are a very important part of any good city. But there are things, for example, do you need to have a cop if somebody overdoses? What's the proper response? Is it necessarily a police order? If somebody is having a mental breakdown out on the street, you need necessarily a police officer. A lot of people would say, yes, because that person poses a public safety. It depends on the situation. Yeah. All right. It depends on the situation. But what you want to do is make sure you're utilizing your police in the most effective way that they are trained to react to. That's what the issue. People can disagree on that. But I don't think anybody that I know what serious about governance does not understand that we have a serious crime problem and that we've got to deal with it. But let me switch here. If I, if I might from the, you know, what I want to do and why the reason I wrote that book is to ask questions that are not asked terribly often in our country among the ruling class of America. And that is we are today the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, right? Yes. Okay. If we are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, one might assume that we have the best health care system in the world. Our kids are getting the best education in the world that our people are living in great affordable housing, that our children are eating nutritious food, etc. But nobody believes that is the case because it's not. And the question we have to ask ourselves is why is that happening? And what do we have to do in order to make it happening? Make it happen. And to my mind, what you are dealing with right now in an unprecedented way is a relatively small number of extraordinarily wealthy, mostly big tech type guys who not only have an unbelievable amount of wealth, they have extraordinary power. And also they kind of believe that they have the right to rule, that have some kind of divine right and that there should be very little accountability toward them. And in their powers, we discussed the moment ago, they and other billionaires have huge impact on the political process. So the interesting thing to me, you know, people say, well Bernie, don't we have a divided country? And he answers, yeah, we do on many issues. But you know what, on many other issues, Tim, we do not. You go out on the street and you ask people, is the American healthcare system working? And people look at you say, you're crazy. Of course it's not working. All right. Should healthcare be a human right? Should all people have healthcare? Yeah. Yes. Okay. That's what most Americans say. Example, my brother is 70 years older than I. He grew up, we grew up here in New York City, Brooklyn. Back then, so we're talking 70 years ago, he went to college, Brooklyn College, a very good college. You know what you paid? How much our family paid for tuition at Brooklyn College? $1,800. No, zero. Really? Yeah. Wow. And if you go to the during that time, you go to the University of California and the great public universities in the world, you know what tuition was zero? State colleges tuition was zero. Today, people cannot afford to send their kids to college. Every psychologist in the world tells you that zero through four of the most important years of development, intellectual and emotional for children, right? Yeah. How's our child care system doing? Terrible. That's right. Yeah. Terrible. We're paying, you want to be a child care worker? Good. We'll pay a 15 bucks an hour with terrible benefits. You're doing some of the most important work in the world. So the issue that we have, you know, education was a study came out a few months ago. Our kids in America today rank something like 37th in the world in science and reading and writing all that stuff. I'm shocked it's that high. I've spoken to some of them. It's pretty impressive. Oh, dear, my small business-owning friend, you never grew good business with bad website. I know, but it's really hard. Do not do the despairing. Try a Yonos. Let clever thinking AI, but you're smart looking professional website that is optimized for mobile in no time. And use its many tools to get your business growing super quick. Nice. No, my darlings. This is nice, nice, nice. Try a Yonos. Your digital partner at ionos.co.uk. Fiber from only 19 pounds a month. It's out of this world. Speed and reliability. Vast upload and downloading us right here in rural tranquility. Satter dreams. Is that a bull? Gigger clear. Vast are broadband for rural Britain. From only 19 pounds a month. TZC's apply. 18 month contract. Prices may rise during contract. Check availability at giggerclear.com. Oh, dear, my small business-owning friend, you never grew good business with bad website. I know, but it's really hard. Do not do the despairing. Try a Yonos. Let clever thinking AI, but you're smart looking professional website that is optimized for mobile in no time. And use its many tools to get your business growing super quick. Nice. No, my darlings. This is nice, nice, nice. Try a Yonos. Your digital partner at ionos.co.uk. More freedom all the way with LNEOR. Selected route only. Visit LNEOR.co.uk slash timetable for details. How in God's name? Good question. Right? Good. All right. Let's be honest. I'm not going to seize them. I, you know, I unlike the president of the United States. I kind of believe in the constitution and the rule of law. Agreed. All right. But, but there's always a butt. All right. Here's the butt. Yeah. The butt isn't. Let me be as clear as I can be. Let's get a bus. I don't know. 400 plus billion dollars. He's on his way to become a trillion now. Yeah. Do I think that is acceptable? No, I don't. So I think we should have it a certain point. The tax on wealth. My own guess is most people can make an out of billion dollars. Yeah. So I think you need right now you have billionaires paying an effective tax rate that is lower than a truck driver or a nurse. Does that make sense? Not to me. It doesn't. And I think what we have got to do, which is it is not only have progressive taxation that say to these billionaires they can't have this extraordinary amount of wealth. What we have got to do is it's a little bit harder is to change the culture. And that is I respect people who are innovative, create new businesses. I really do. They make money. God bless them. Who cares? Right. Make money. Get rich. But there is a limit. I think most of these guys get their satisfaction. Have creation. They create all this kind of thing. You're like, want money? Yeah. But money as an end really. What does the next hundred billion dollars? You'll worth 200 billion out. Do you really need to know 100 billion? Do the work that you got to do. You know great people like Jonas Salk. Remember the belt the polio basket. He gave it away. Right. The world remembers him as a great hero. Right. But Jonas Salk was not building an autonomous drone army. And a lot of these a lot of these guys are like a lot of them have given up on America. Good. They don't care about the nation state. They want to raise tremendous amounts of capital from the government. They want to raid the treasury so they can build a arsenal of weapons for the defense department, maybe also for themselves. They're all building these bunkers all over the world. What do they know that we don't know or you know, not to sound like a conspiracy theorist. Tim, you're getting look, you're getting into someone kind of creepy. Are you? And I don't think you're crazy. I mean, who the hell knows? But right. Maybe all crazy. I don't, but I don't think so. But here's look. Let's go there for a second. All right. Right now, you know, I know presumably everybody knows no great secret. Musks and Bezos and Ellison and Altman and others are putting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions dollars into AI and robotics. Correct. Correct. Okay. Now, does anybody really believe that these guys are doing it in order to prove, improve life for the average American zero people believe. Statistically, it's funny. They just say that. Yeah. I was a dab in what I was four guys don't even believe. I was a dab in what I were a couple of months ago. We got a few thousand people out of the rally. So I said, you know, I said what I just said, they're putting all those money. Raise your hand thousands of people. Raise your hand if you think AI and robotics is going to help the working class of this country in a room of several thousand people. Two hands went up. So people understand, you know, and now what are their goals? What are they trying to do? And this is where it really becomes kind of creepy. In my view, and I'm not, I don't claim to be the world's greatest expert. But what you're going to see with AI and robotics is the displacement of millions and millions of people from the jobs that they have. You know, I want to see manufacturing rebuilt in America. But for a worker, it's not going to mean anything if robots are doing the work. And we want to see young people start their own small businesses, et cetera. But it's going to be incredibly hard when we see more concentration of ownership. And when entry level jobs are going to be done by AI. So you're looking at a revolution, a huge transformation, economic transformation, cultural transformation of our society. Who is determining what's happening? You have much say in it? No, no, I got a handful of people who are really determining the future of the world. That's scary stuff. Well, I want to talk about for a minute, because Trump's main issue, it was immigration. The migration seems to be the biggest issue in the UK election. It was the biggest issue in the US election. It seems to be a massive issue all over the world. And I wanted to talk, I don't like the ice rates. They're barbaric. I think showing up to a college graduation and deporting somebody who's there to watch his daughter graduate from college or high school, whatever it is, is inhumane. But I will point to an article from 2007 in the Wall Street Journal about the crygur poultry processing plant in Georgia. And what it was was after a raid, you had the owners of that company were forced to hire American workers, a lot of them were African American workers and then raise wages to around $7 to $9 per hour. And this was the direct result of not having a pool of undocumented labor. I think a lot of people don't like to see people zip tied in the middle of the street, but they do look at the Biden administration letting in 10 million people and they're suffering and their health care doesn't exist or is too expensive. And they're looking at all the people coming in and the justifications for that that these are all jobs Americans won't do. The service industry, you know, whether it's manufacturing or landscaping or whatever it is, these these jobs, because this is what I every ever since I've grown up, we've always heard that. These are jobs Americans won't do. Mark Andreessen said recently that the only jobs that won't be replaced by AI or venture capital, which is his job. So my question is, is there a position that the Democratic Party can take that is obviously anti people getting dragged out of their houses? But recognizes that citizenship should mean something that we should have a border and that, you know, having laws that protect workers is important and that people employing undocumented workers or illegal labor is driving down wages for Americans. You've asked a lot of very important questions, good questions. Let's look at the basic. So long as we have nation states, right, which we have, you got to have borders, right? You don't have any borders, then you don't have a nation, right? In a sense. So has historically the United States done well on the Democrats and Republicans protecting the border? The answer is no. Trump did a better job. I don't like Trump, you know, but we should have a secure border and it's that hard to do. Biden didn't do it. Those before him did not do it. We should have a secure border period. I think most people in the Congress agree with that. Why don't you think he did it? Just out of curiosity. Pardon me? Why don't you think Biden was more proactive with securing the border? He did. He did some things. He was not, I think by the end of his term, my memory is correct, the number of illegal folks coming in had gone down, but I'm not going to sit here and tell you that overall it was a good job. It was not. All right. So that's point number one. You need a border, let's have a border. And we have certainly the technology and the manpower to make that happen. Number two, what happens? What is the appropriate response to, we think there are about 10 million undocumented people in the country today, less than 3% of our population, okay? There are estimates that are higher, but let's say it's 10. That's those are the lessons I was saying. Okay. Why did those, let's speak to you, those people, my father came to this country from Poland, came in legally, they came in illegally, period. Okay. It was illegal. What are most of those people doing right now? Are they working hard? None of those people should be faulted for coming here. Okay. It should be who we should start faulting people like Steve Wynn who run a billion dollar hotel on illegal labor and why aren't we enforcing e-verify? Yeah. Good. All right. Yeah. So you got these folks who came to this country the same reason my dad came to this country. He grew up poor in Poland, came for a better life. That's why they dragged their kids in from Mexico, Guatemala, thousands of them. You know, they have a better life. They escape the violence and the poverty that they're in. They're here now. The truth of the matter is and one of the things that I really, really dislike about Trump and what demagogues always do is this country as we've discussed has enormous problems and what demagogues always do instead of trying to deal with why we have those problems. One of the causes of the problem, what are the solutions? You blame a powerless minority. In Europe in the 30s, it was the Jews, it was Gypsies, in this country, it was Gays, it was blacks forever, you know, with Latinos, always somebody to blame rather than dealing with the real issue. So, and hey, you got roughly 10 million people in this country, most of whom, by the way, work very hard and according to a number of studies, the crime rate, you know, Trump goes around, you know, talking about, you know, somebody does, you know, commits a terrible, terrible murder. Trump is talking about all of their lawless, you know, disgusting subhuman human beings. Look at this crime here. Truth is that the crime rate in communities of undocumented people is lower than the general average. You know that? Well, the crime rate should almost be none, right? If we're bringing, if people are coming into America and they are, you know, coming here for better life and they're properly screened, the crime rate should almost be nothing. Well, it is, it's what, all I'm saying is this is not, like, it's not like that criminals, everyone's a drug addict. I don't think anyone thinks everyone is a criminal and I don't think that any of it, but we do have a ton of income inequality, as you've talked about. So, assimilating people into this economic structure is difficult. It is inevitable that some people that cannot find work will turn to crime. And I mean, that's just inevitable. But it's only point is this, you know, this is not a community that is, you know, prone to lots of amounts of crime. All right. So what do we do? You got 10 million people, you know, most of them are working on your point, I think, is well taken. Yeah. A lot of employers exploit them. Yeah. And by the way, often these people are paying social security payroll tax, paying Medicare payroll tax, paying other taxes, and they don't get the benefits for what they paid by the way. Right. All right. But this has always been a Republican issue. Like, this is why I don't understand why the Democratic Party allowed the issue to be kind of, to, to demagogued, because even, you know, yourself, you were out there advocating always for workers, rights. And, you know, when somebody talked about open borders, you rightly said that, you know, this is something that Koch brothers would love. So they were huge proponents of immigration, the Chamber of Commerce, huge proponents of immigration. A lot of, you know, radical libertarians, like the Kochs and others, huge proponents of immigration. So when they're bringing all these people in, and whether it's 10 million or more, I mean, there's probably, I mean, I think they're at credible estimates are a bit more, but I don't think it's necessarily about the exact number. But why were Americans told at a certain point that they should not consider certain blue collar jobs worthy of their time? They should all, they should take out student loans and, and, you know, go to a four year university. And then a lot of those jobs that were, you know, ended up going to people that, that came into the country legally and the employers are paying a lot less money. I think there's a lot of people that feel that these pro business interests brought in a lot of people's to, to increase the profits of their own companies at the expense of people that saw a lot of their job shipped overseas. Yeah, a lot of stuff that's going on. And one of the things, is, you know, in my view, I mean, for people like the Koch brothers, that was legal. It was cheap labor. But I think where we are right now, I mean, is you have excellent wetabritus, I think, my endless thing is about 10 million. What do we do? And the answer is I think right now, and where Congress has failed, although they have been bipartisan efforts, is obviously comprehensive immigration reform. Right. And in my view, a path towards citizenship. And we have failed in that regard. So, you know, I think that right now, that is the goal that Congress should set upon itself. I think that, you know, that is a terribly important issue that has to be done with. Hiya, I'm Eleanor, just your average walk-in token dancing thing in Puppet. A Puppet that loves an LNER train journey, it beats the CERR every time. I'm free to do all the things I love. Get lost in a true crime series, type away like an office ninja, order yummy food and drinks to my seat, or just have a cheeky power nap. And now, with more services and faster journey times, there's more freedom all the way with LNER. Selected route only, visit LNER.co.uk slash timetable for details. The world moves fast. You work day, even faster, pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 co-pilot is your AI assistant for work. Built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use. Helping you quickly right, analyze, create, and summarize. So you can cut through clutter and clear path to your best work. Learn more at Microsoft.com slash M365 co-pilot. Hiya, I'm Eleanor, just your average walk-in token dancing thing in Puppet. A Puppet that loves an LNER train journey, it beats the CERR every time. I'm free to do all the things I love. Get lost in a true crime series, type away like an office ninja, order yummy food and drinks to my seat, or just have a cheapy power nap. And now, with more services and faster journey times, there's more freedom all the way with LNER. Selected route only, visit LNER.co.uk slash timetable for details. You know listen, I think that most Americans, not not everyone, obviously. But most Americans feel that people should live the lives they want to live, as long as they're not infringing upon other people. Where people do get understandably concerned as children. And I think with the trans issue, you only seem to hear from the loudest voices on both sides, by the way, people on the right that believe that trans people shouldn't exist. And then people on the radical end of the trans movement that believe any questioning of when younger people should be introduced to an idea, or when medical intervention is necessary, a lot of people, they regard any question about those things as a transphobia or an attack. Most people in America don't want pre-pubescent children on puberty blocking hormones. And this is by the polls, right? Because they feel that kids are kids, they're young, they don't quite know what's going on yet. And to make an irreversible medical decision at that age, if you're encouraged to do so, that to a lot of people feels like an infringement on their rights as parents. And to me, I feel like it's one of the issues that the Democratic Party has seemed to have lost their way on, because it has sucked the oxygen out of a lot of the conversations that you want to have, which are good conversations about a woman's right to choose, and gay rights and trans rights, and all of these good things that should exist. But when you have this issue about puberty blocking hormones for children, it's such a controversial issue for so many people. The answer is yes, you're right. Okay. But the answer is, and it is important, and I think Democrats and perhaps myself have not done as good a job as we can in dealing with it. What percentage of the population is trans do you think? Probably 1%. Maybe it most. Yeah. All right. Today, 60,000 people every single year die because they don't can't get medical care. 60,000. Yeah. All right. Today, we got 800,000 people who are homeless. Today, we're dealing with a climate crisis that could wreak havoc over the years on our culture. So I think you're right in saying, I think you're right, that the Democrats have allowed the Republicans to exploit those issues by not dealing with them effect them. Well, they've also just refused to compromise. I mean, these are unpopular issues. Fair enough. Bialogical men and women's sports is just an unpopular issue. You know, child sex changes, there's no one wants this very few people, very radical people, and I understand the people of trans children and I get it. But you know, this has tremendously hurt the electability of them. But I think the answer is yes, but the answer also is why are we talking, are we not talking about some of the issues that I raised earlier? Why are we not talking about the fact that we are the only major country in North not the guarantee healthcare or people because there is a lot of gains are demagoguing this one issue because it was handed to them on a silver platter by Democrats. Well, all that I'm saying is if this country can do what every I live 50 miles, I've been burling for about 50 miles away from the Canadian border, you end up in a hospital in a month in Canada. You know what the bill is when you come out? A lot of money. In Canada, a lot of money? No, zero. Oh, in Canada, so I'm going to be a man in Burlington. They're really good as a lot of money. All right, they spend half as much per capita. Stop for a moment and think what it would mean to this country. I'm talking to the people out there. If you get ill, you end up in a hospital. You don't have to pay anything out of your own pocket. And as a nation, we end up in spending half as much as we're spending now per capita because the function of our health care system is not just to make the insurance companies and the drug companies such. You know what that would do to America? You don't have many people, half a million people a year go bankrupt because of medically related debt. People don't go into the doctor. They can't afford to pay their co-payment. Right. All right, it would be transformed. But what would it mean to America if we raise the minimum wage to a living wage? We got millions of people. With minimum wage, we're washing and now federal minimum wage, seven or two quarter an hour. All right, you got millions of people working for starvation wages. All right, what would it mean if we raise the minimum wage to a living wage? What would it mean in this country if you didn't have to pay 40 or 50% of your limiting incomes on housing because we built millions of units of low income and affordable housing. Yeah. What I'm saying is what I'm saying is the Republicans and I really do dislike this. If people disagree with me on a health care, fine. Let's debate the issue. Disagree with me on economics. Debate the issue. But I really do hate demagoguery where you deflect attention away from the major crises facing large numbers of people right now. As you know, where I think in the 20th day of a shutdown, you know what the issue is? The issue is a very simple one. If Trump and his friends get their way, 15 million people will lose the health care they have today and according to studies, 50,000 of them will die unnecessarily every year. And if you're on the affordable care at on average, your premiums will double. Which is why I think a lot of people because I agree, but a lot of people with an election was so much at stake were shocked that President Biden was, you know, put out as the candidate with clear cognitive issues. And then without a primary, Kamala Harris, who was relatively unpopular in the democratic primaries, was then the candidate and she only had 90 days to sell herself to the American people. And by the way, she did a decent job for having 90 days. But the machinery of the democratic party allowed that to happen. And this has nothing to do with you. By the way, your kind of even though you're a Democrat, you're outside of that. I'm independent. You're independent. You know, caucus with the, no, for sure. And nobody would hold you responsible for that at all. But the machinery of the modern democratic party allows that to happen when an elect, and they tell us this election as the stakes have never been higher. Democracy is on the ballot. And then they allow this to happen. How does that happen? Why is there such a cover up with Biden's mental decline? Why is there no primary, a quick one even after he is judged unfit to run? Why is there no transparency there? That's a huge problem. And I think it delivered the, I mean, I know people blame five podcasters, but I think that process helped deliver the country. Again, we, let me just say this, you know, I ran against Kambla back in 2020. And no heart is not close, but I know well, she's an incredibly intelligent, focused person. And I worked as hot as I could. I ran all over the country to try to get her elected. I think the reason that she lost that election gets back to the point we, we discussed at the beginning of this podcast. And that is money and politics. Kambla did not run a campaign focused on the needs of the working class. Didn't run a campaign focused on healthcare, on economics and raising the minimum wage or unpaid family and medical leave on housing on all of the issues that working people are struggling with right now. And I think her not focusing on those issues allowed Trump to win in my view. Right. What do you think about this ceasefire or this peace deal? Does this gonna, this seems like maybe it's unraveling? We don't know. I hope it works. You're right. Let's hope to God. Yeah, I pray. Let me say word on this because I've been involved in this a little bit as you may know. Hamas is a terrorist organization that committed an atrocity when it attacked Israel and killed 1200 innocent men, women and a lot of young people took hundreds of hostages. Israel had a right to defend itself as any country on earth does when you're attacked by anybody, especially a terrorist organization. But what happened for a variety of reasons in Israel having to do with Israeli politics in Netanyahu is they didn't just go to war against Hamas, which was appropriate. They went to war against the entire Palestinian people. And two years after that attack, you have 100, you have some 65 in a population, Tim, of 2.2 million, pretty small population. 65,000 people are dead. 140,000, 160,000 have been injured. That's 10% of the entire population, mostly women, children and the elderly, 10%. That equivalent in America would be 333 million people killed or wounded. And behind all of that was American money. So to my mind, the first lesson to be learned is never again, and this is true on the Biden, we beg Biden, did everything I could to say, Mr. President, stop giving Netanyahu more and more military aid to destroy the Palestinian people. And Trump came in, he continued the same process. Now, thank God we think a few days ago they've reached the ceasefire, hostages were released, that's fantastic. Prisoners were released. Let's hope the God it holds and let's hope that the United States and the international community rebuild Gaza, it's not just the dead in the wounded. That whole area is flattened. You have Miriam Allison who gave Trump a lot of money. You have a lot of mega donors that have given Trump a lot of money. Apex, a very powerful lobbying organization that doesn't have to register as a foreign lobby. Should America fundamentally reevaluate its relationship with Israel? I think the lesson here is that never again, well, never again should the United States be pouring in huge amounts of money to a country which is not only acting in violation of international law, but in violation of American law. It is in violation of American law to give money to a country which is restricting humanitarian aid, for example. So we have given money to Netanyahu in violation of both international law and a American law. In my view, Netanyahu is a war criminal. The people at the head of Hamas are war criminals as well. I hope that is a lesson that we learn as a country. Well, I mean, you can see right now that this is the biggest tension point in both the Republican and Democratic Party when it pertains to young voters. Young people who can afford a house are living in a country where they are graduating college and the job market is tough. Don't understand why billions and billions of dollars are going to the Israel. And by the way, they are also understanding we're now year three or four of this Ukraine conflict with Putin. And I think a lot of them are struggling to understand why billions and billions of dollars are going to the Ukraine and why Trump is now telling Zelensky go win all your territory back instead of trying to force some type of peace. I don't I don't see the two issues as comparable. I think, as I said, Israel had a right. I mean, they're both foreign conflict. Yeah, they are. That younger people are wondering right. They are why their money is going to negotiate a land dispute in in northern Ukraine. I don't call that a land dispute. I think it's eventually will end up being some type of exchange of territory or a it's a border dispute. I think Putin is a disgusting human being. And by the way, what is not widely perceived when known, you know, it's the best of my knowledge. Unbelievably, hundreds of thousands of young Russians have died in that war. Well, everyone so many people have died and that's why a lot of Americans don't want to be part of it. You know, I mean, we don't want our money going to increase the likelihood that more people are going to die. I think a lot of people are making money. You know, Putin's been able to reorganize the economy of his country as a wartime economy. He's been able to evade American sanctions. He's deepened his relationship with China, India, Brazil, the Bricks nations. He's been able to do a lot of things that have probably increased his power base. For now, maybe not long term. But as it is it's smart to keep pouring money and military aid into this conflict with America in the state that it's in. I have talked to ambassadors from a number of countries in Europe. And their fear is that Putin has this idea that he's going to rebuild the Russian Empire and continue to advance. And if he has stopped, don't stop at the Ukraine or the Eastern Europe countries will be next. I think that data will be involved in maybe the United States and our troops as well. The rebuttal to that would be he can barely win in the Ukraine. So the idea that he's going to go march through Europe now. I mean, he can't even finish the job there. All right. Anyway, I think this is a terrible guy who invaded a country that should not have been invaded. And I think it has to be resistant. That's my view. At what point would you decide that it might be time to pull the plug on American funding for that war? Would you go? Would you commit American troops to fight Russia? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, absolutely not. Would you give Zalinsky long-range missiles capable of hitting Moscow? No, I don't think you want to do that either. But I think, you know, you don't want to see this terrible war with so many casualties even explode even further. But I think, you know, the United States has got to use all of its influence to tell Putin to end this bloody war. How do you think America's relationship with Israel is going to change? I think it is changing. Yeah. I think as you've indicated, you got certainly in the progressive left community in America, which started off being sympathetic to Israel after they were attacked. That has been completely changed. And I think the point you made, maybe not widely known, is a lot of younger Republicans now, younger people, under 40, under 50, no longer want to continue to support the government like that. Should APEC register as a foreign lobby? APEC has played a terrible role. That's a good, I don't know the answer to it honestly. But APEC has spread money around all over the place to right-wing Republicans, the liberal Democrats. And they have played a terrible, terrible role in trying to win support for NetNew. I think the very good news is their influence is beginning to wane. I don't know if you've noticed that. I've even established the Democrats are saying, well, thank you. Not only don't I want you, I'm going to return your donation. I don't want any part of it. And that is because I think the American people are disgusted with what has gone on in Gaza. I think I want to, a few more questions. I think it's so interesting. Again, I think you know, your, a lot of what you say is so mainstream. And yet your portrayed in the media as someone who's on the fringe of American politics. And that's, this interview doesn't seem to be the case. You're not saying tax people at 90%. Maybe you believe that. I'm saying that we shouldn't have people that have over more than a billion dollars. I guess within the context of America. A lot of people, I think a lot of people would say a billion dollars is fine. I think a lot of people would say a billion dollars is fine. And what I'm saying by the way, Tim, is, you know, I talked to my European friends that say, Bernie, I don't want to hurt your feelings. But in Europe, you would not be considered all that radical. Right. Right. No. And in America, maybe even not, you know, with, but so when you look at the UK, for example, and you look at the issues that they're having around migration, some of these issues are financial, some of them are cultural. Some of these are cultural issues. There are different groups of people learning how to live with each other. That's right. And you know, there is this knee jerk reaction to call everybody a racist that has concerns about culture. And I don't mean, you know, people going like, I don't want to live with Muslims or I don't want to live with the obviously there is elements of racism to that. But the United States, you know, when you have large groups of people, whether they're it's guitar giving the president a plane or it's Israel going, we need more money. Or it's the, you know, the government and Minnesota Jacob Fry telling us Somali delegation like, I'd love to go to Somalia. One of the reasons I think Zoran's doing so well is he goes, I'm not visiting Israel. I'm going to stay in New York. And he's focusing on the issues facing people. There are people that believe and not in a paranoid racist crazy way, but the groups of people are using and exploiting. Not only America, but other successful countries, Western countries, and that they're going in there and they don't care about the laws, rules, customs, culture of the country. They're going in there to suck money out or they're going in there to establish a power base and dictate, you know, a lot of people worried about free speech. A lot of people are worried about laws that, you know, are supposed to be protecting Jewish people, but they really are protecting criticism of Israel. There's people that worry about, you know, Islamic groups that are demanding that certain laws be passed that restrict any criticism of Islam. How can we have these conversations? Where they're not, where people aren't having these new jerk reactions about racism? How can we say that we do have a civilization that believes in certain things? And then if you come to it or you come to the UK, come to any country, you have to respect the laws, customs, and culture of that country. You cannot turn that country into something that it fundamentally isn't, right? You can't demand that you come into your house, right? You invite me to dinner? Yes. You are my host, right? Right. And I respect that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's fair. Yeah. No one forces somebody to come to another country. So I mean, I think that basic principle is correct. How do we figure out how, you know, because there's a lot of it, you know, when Zoran says, I want a hundred million dollars to deal with legal disputes for undocumented people in New York. There are a lot of Americans and New Yorkers that go, why aren't we spending a hundred million dollars and investing it in the Bronx or Brooklyn or areas of a, like it does seem to be some of the empathy that the Democratic Party used to have for citizens not having health care. It does seem to be always directed in the direction of immigration. Well, Zoran is a, I'm sure a Medicare for all advocate as well. You know, we've talked about healthcare in New York city, et cetera. And I think he's going to do a great job in trying to deal with the affordability issue we're here in, in the city. But I think we're, as a nation, at a very, very unprecedented moment in that you have a president who wants more and more power unto himself. And I think it's important that we stop him and ice from these terrible raids throwing people into the van. So I think that's what Zoran is, is trying to protect people who have lived in New York city, well, all over the country, not to see people all over the country. For decades, they're working hard. It does not want to see, you know, somebody in a mask, pick them up, throw them into a bag. And I disagree with those ice rates. But if, if we're encouraging people to attack ice or block out of the ending, those people are attacking ice. Well, for sure. But if that happens, that is being used as the pre-tax for these troop deployments. Well, what Trump is doing is, is totally crazy. I mean, he's trying to say that in Portland, Oregon, they are trying to overthrow the United States government. No, no, I understand. Really? I understand that that's insane. But I do think that Zoran, if he goes to war with Trump on enforcing federal immigration law, will make New York a pretty crazy place to live. Look, I think his focus and the reason, I think honestly, is one of brilliant campaign. Yeah. He's a very, very intelligent guy. I think he's focusing on how you can govern in a very difficult circumstance. I think the focus on affordability, how you control housing prices in the city, are you make childcare available to more and more people? You know, have you worry that he'll move to the center? There was, you know, there's reported that he had a meeting with David Axelrod and you Obama people and stuff like that. He talks to a lot of people and I think that's a good thing. No, I, I, I got to take I'm a fan of his fan. I, I, I, I, I've been really impressed. You know, this is a guy. What if he's toasting Jamie Diamond in two years? What if he's not ballroom? I don't think that's good. Well, this is what happens sometimes. And then somebody's in a ballroom with Jamie Diamond and Zoran's going, Jamie, you know, when I got here, I was just skeptic, but you're my best friend and then you're on a yacht and it's going all over New York. Ah, between you and me, I do not think that's going to happen. I, I think Alex Andrew and I will be in New York City next week. Is she running for president? How about a unity ticket, Marjorie and Cortez? What about that Marjorie Tilligreen in AOC? You, you, you came up with that idea. It's, it's actually my idea. It's not a bad idea. Fighting oligarchy is the book fight oligarchy, Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, a consistent voice in American politics. There's no one that doesn't respect you. By the way, which is, which is rare to say to a politician, go out, read this book, including me and I appreciate you coming on and talking to us. Read this book and I hope Peter Teal puts us in prison, in similar parts of the prison. All right. So we can discuss the book. Okay. Bernie Sanders. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Of course.