Bernie Sanders Says Democrats Have Lost Their Way
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C. From new york times i'm Michael. This is the day.

Today, as the democratic party ships through the rubber l of its sweeping electoral laws and tries to chart a path back to a power, few people have as clear eyed a diagnosis as a senator burning standards of vermont, which is why I gave him a call.

It's friday, november fifth.

Hello.

senator Sanders. Yes, Michael barbaro, I very well. I reach senator centers inside his office on capital hill on thursday morning. You may not remember this, but the last time you and I spoke was back in twenty twenty. We were in the same room, and we were working on a profile of you, focused on your earliest days in public office as mayor of billington. It's not as vid memory for you, apparently, as IT is for me.

Was that a good story?

I thought I was a good story. We had our moments, you and I, in that interview, and we don't need to reconstruct the whole thing. But there was there was a pointed moment where you were frustrating with something I asked, you almost got up and left, but then you decided to stay right. That's so Better .

this time.

Moving on, I just want to begin, senator, by asking for your reaction to the news of the past twenty four hours that republicans have taken control of the house because what that means is that republicans now control both chAmbers and the White house. You are about to be in the minority as president. Electron brings a very aggressive agenda of congress and agenda, Frankly, that democrats have called on other things a threat to democracy. So how are you processing that?

Well, obvious job is to rally the american people, to make IT clear, especially to working people, that we need an economy in the government that works for all to expose as best we can with trump in administration are doing. But it's not just the inside the bullet game. It's a question around in the american people to fight back effectively.

So you're in a fighting mood.

Oh, absolutely. I think right now is this is a pivotal moment in american history and the next year or two will determine what happens in this country for decades, in my view.

fighting mood or not. Are there any areas where you are prepared to work with the president elect? Absolute and and what might those be?

They have trump, for example, follows through on his proposal to limit interest rates on credit cards to ten percent, which is what he campaigned on. Absolutely, I will be there. I think that's a very good idea.

I think it's time we told the people on wall street they cannot charge a desperate working class people who can have on a hard time paying their bills twenty five, thirty, forty percent interest rates. That's usi ous. That's immoral. And if trump wants to impose a credit card limit on interest rates, i'll be there.

So where are your vision of champagne? The working class overlap SE with his you may may back as .

agenda if he comes up with reasonable ideas. Yes, I would be uh, interested in working with him.

Let's turn to what I think is going to be the heart of this conversation, senator Sanders, which is the effort underway across the democratic party.

And you're a big part of IT of reckoning with the meaning of the outcome of this election and understanding not just why koala has didn't win, but why Donald trump, in Victory, expanded his electoral reach into communities of color, into america's use, into blue state america, including your own homes, state of vermont, where when you look at the new york times graphic, you see those red arrows adJusting. His support deepened since he last ran. Donald trump has created the most racially and politically diverse coalition of any republican in a generation.

And you have participated, as I said, in the post mortal underway across the democratic party. And I just wanted read something. You have said that a lot of people, when they read IT, found very bracing.

This is what you said. Quote, IT should come as no great surprise that a democratic party which has abandoned working class people would find that working class people have abandoned them. And you went on to say, first, this abandonment was among White working class americans.

Now IT is latino and black workers as well. While the democratic leadership defends the satis quote, the american people are angry and they want change and they're right. I want you to just explain what you mean and be very specific, if you can, when you say that the democratic party has abandoned the working class, when and how did the democratic party abandon the working class?

Well, tapping as we're going on for decades, including disastrous trade policies pushed by the clan.

You're talking about nafta.

Yeah, that's right. The reality is the american people want, many of them are angry and they have every reason to be angry. Today in america, and sometimes, you know, some of the elite does not understand this.

Today in america, sixty percent of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. I grew up in a family that live paycheck to paycheck. I understand the stress involved that that means that if your car breaks down, you don't know how you get to work.

If you get sick, you don't know whether or not you can afford to go to a doctor. If your lander aces rent by twenty percent, you don't know where you gonna live, where your kid gonna right to school. That's the reality facing sixty percent of the american people.

Meanwhile, the very wealthiest people in this country have never, ever had IT so good. That's a reality. So what happened in this campaign is donal truth said to the american people, you are angry.

You really peace for, and I know that, and you're right. And any gabs explanation and his explanation, which was obviously nonsense and false and racist that matter, what is that? Millions and millions of undocumented people were coming across the water.

They were dating american word occupy country. They were taking your jobs, taking your benefits, eating your cats and your dogs. Daddy is why you are hurting.

Now, that is a crazy explanation, but IT is an explanation. Now you tell me what the democratic explanation was. Well, please.

please, please explore that map, this critique onto the democratic campaign and IT shortcomings .

by the democratic explore was, hey, we have passed some good things, very important things, on the bite administration, which happens to be true. Biding kept his word. He was the most progressive president on domestic issues since fda.

We did a lot of good things, but instead of saying, yeah, we are rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, we're lowering the cost of prescription drugs, we are transforming our energy system. We forgave student debt for five million people, make in some progress, but we have a long, long way to go wait. And I just pauses t .

you because I I I think i'm not certain of understanding something. Where did the campaign of commonly Harris go wrong if IT was working with what you're describing is the building blocks of a successful policy agenda.

I know that you many, many it's not just calmly house, it's the deal in no words, let me read something if I might please. What I think is one of the most interesting speeches ever given Franklin delena roads belt in augur a speech in nineteen thirty six, middle of depression. So he starts to speeches.

He says, like, these are the things we did. These are the obstacles that we had to overcome and then he says, after being president for four years, he says that, I quote, I see millions of families trying to live on income omega, that the poll, a family disaster hangs over them day by day. I see millions of nine education, recreation and the opportunity to Better there, a lot and a lot of their children.

I see one third of a nation, ill house, ill clad, ill nursed input. In other words, what rose bet did is that, look, we're making progress. But i'd look out all over this country, I see tens of millions of people who are hurting instead of doing that with the democrats had where we pass the inflation and just the economy is pretty good and dont troops of bad guy.

We all defend woman's consent, right to the version. There was no appreciation, no appreciation of the struggling and the suffering of millions and millions of working class people. And unless you recognize that reality, and I have a vision of how you get out of that, I think you are gonna going very far as a political party.

You're saying at the party in this last election didn't communicate that they understood americans pain. As a result, they came off as defending the set as co. And I mean, I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that common Harris was asked repeatedly what you would do differently in this campaign and pretty much said he didn't think anything needed to be an differently and SHE didn't campaign on disruption or large scale change. You need to be suggesting that at the heart of trumps Victory.

the point that I am making is that ordinary people are not stupid. They see what's going on in their own eyes. And if you're not even talking about the reality of what is going on, the reality of their lives, they say, no change is GTA come.

Why would I want to vote for a group of people who don't even acknowledged the reality? For example, you tell me you follow these things. I do.

We have today more in common wealth inequality than we've never had an this country. Did you hear a lot of discussion on that? No, we are the only major country in earth not to guarantee healthcare.

All people as a human right. And the only major country not provide paid, fAiling and medical leave. Do you have much to discussion of them?

Not in this campaign.

Out in this campaign, you got twenty million people in amErica today who are trying to get by in less than fifteen dollars an hour. Did you hear any serious discussion of the need to raise the minimum wages to living, which.

and I think we didn't miss.

I want to.

why do you think centre standard that democrats didn't communicate an understanding of this pain? I mean, one of the ongoing critics of democratic party that emerge sense this election is that IT is a party of elites captive to college educated coastal america, and that it's not understanding and communicating this pain because it's .

not living that pain. IT is not hollie educated people the wrong word. OK holden to the donors who put hundreds and hundreds of millions dollars into end to the bloody consult. And out they will end up this campaign, making zillions of dollars doing the thirty second TV ads, rather than figuring out how we talk reality to ordinary people and get them involved in the political .

process center. I wanna talk about what democrats did talk about in this last campaign because I I think IT may get to a second element of your critique, aside from big money and aside from the question of whether democrat failed to communicate understanding of working class american paigning. And in your second critique of democrats in this moment was around identity.

And I want to read what you said about identity politics. And just to define this phrase, identity politics, I think what you mean is a focus on racial identity, sexual identity. Among this is what you said you said it's not just commute, Harris. It's a democratic party which increasingly has become a party of identity politics rather than understanding that the vast majority of people in the country are working class. This trend of workers leaving the democratic party and you return to the theme started with Whites and IT has accelerated to latinos and blacks. When I hear you say that, I hear you saying, and I want to make sure preter correctly, that the democratic party, including over the past years, so in this campaign, has turned off many working class americans who feel that the way the democratic party, especially its leaders, talk about things like race and gender and trans people, leaves them feeling alienated from that conversation, being police and even scalded by IT for not using the right words, for not accepting something like trans used on sports teams. Is that what you mean?

But I think the more important point is being ignored, their needs of being dog. And let me be very clear where the democratic party deserves a lot of credit over the last many decades is, in fact, leading the effort for women's rights. And we have come a long way until rov e way, doesn't matter of fact.

And the democratic party deserves a lot of credit for fighting for civil rights, for fighting for gay rights, for fighting to end bigger, all forms of bigtooth this country. Democrats were right on that struggle. But you can go forward in both directions.

You can say we are gonna fight for a bigger free america. That's an ongoing struggle. We made progress. Get a long way to go.

But at the same time, we can stand up for the working class in this country, which, by the way, happens to be significantly african american and latin and women who are the bulk of the working class in this country. So it's not either or. It's going forward in both directions.

That is a winner. Some of the democrat pdts say, well, you know, the problem is all of these trump people are races, their sexist in their home globes. Well, no doubt that some of them are, and that's true.

Most of them are no suspect. Many of them actually voted for the first black president in american story. broke.

Ama, right? But they are in large numbers, working class people. And we've got to speak to them in an economic perspective that is clear and straightforward.

I guess a touch confused by the answer you just gave because your quote about identity politics seem to suggest that the democratic party's focus on identity is in some opposition to its ability to appeal to working class voters who may feel turned off about that. But then in your answer, I felt a little bit of a retreat from that understand.

Read a, you can say luck isn't a great that we have, in fact, a very smart and effective black woman who's on the super count, great. But you don't hang ahead of that. Say a, well, what you also want to do is talk about the reality of what's going on in the african american community all over this country.

So it's a matter of communicating that perhaps the democratic core values are things like diversity, but not to the exclusion of these central questions of economic.

not either or. IT is both. And you have to decide what does what is the vision of the democratic party? Who's the declared party taking on? You told me, Michael, in this campaign, child chop was taking on, I mean, every day there was another enemy out day. But by a large, the basic problem with millions of illegal immigrants coming in or eating our cats and dogs, and they were the enemy going to solve that problem, everything would be great.

Was the democratic party taking on in that campaign? I mean, what was the examination? What would you going to do to address the fact of so many people in amErica struggling that have anything to do with the greed of corporate america, the fact to trap a billionaire ass today that wants IT all they want to own the political system? Does anyone really talk about the degree to which the people on have owe this country and want more and more and could give a them about ordinary markets? Now that is what I believe, unlike trump, that's what I believe the cause about problems.

I believe that we can create a nation in which all people have healthcare. All kids have good quality products. We have a strong public education system. I believe we can do that, but we're not going to do IT unless we are able to take on the big money interests who want to use this economy to make themselves even richer than they are right now. That is the declining issue.

To go back just a second, you seem very clear on the idea that the democratic ty can be a party that embraces diversity as a core value and even elements of what you describe as identity politics. But I just wonder if you can grapple with the reality that Donald trumps message in opposition to things like diversity, equity and inclusion, holding IT up as a bugging man and suggesting that IT is unfair and the democrats want to bring that unfairness and make IT more and more central to the country's identity, seemed to resonate in this election.

Well, IT resonates within the context of democrats not recognizing the pain that ordinary people are feeling and taking on the people who caused that pain, and routing people around an agenda that works for them. You know, you can't fight something with nothing. You gotta have an alternative division.

Trump had his vision. IT was incorrect. IT was dishonest.

He was, in many cases, racist and sexist. He had a vision. He had an explanation. To my view, democrats really did not.

What do I back?

Okay, i'm opening .

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download IT now and times that come slash APP. I want to press a little bit further into this question of democratic leadership being out of touch with the working class and not meeting voters where they are. You've started to clearly articulate this when you criticize the democrats for not appreciating and communicating the pain of america's working class.

But another element of this emerging democratic critics in election day is that democrats have drawn what summer saying is unnecessary lines in the sand about where they go to have this conversation in the first place. When you were a candidate for president, you add no problem going on shows like joe rogan, he ended up backing you for president in twenty sixteen. And in this campaign, joe rogan invited all the candidates on his show, uh, dow trm said, D.

S. J. Evans said, yes. Tens of million of people saw vice present Harris decline that limitation to go on the show, we suspect, in part because they worried about blow back from democrats who don't like rogan.

They think he's insensitive. He's not one of them. And since then, we found that some voters viewed rogan interview with trump is kind of decisive in their decision to vote for trump. Our democrats writing off too many places and too many medium in this moment and making a mistake in their ability to reach working class voters where they are.

Well, funny. U S, that mine I am thicky back to when I ran for president in twenty twenty. And I did an interview with the new york times, you work for the new york times, and we did an interview with the editorial board of the new york times, of which I think they gave each member twenty members or so.

I don't remember two votes a piece, right? I was either ahead or in second place in the polls at that time. And of the forty votes that were cast, I got one of the votes.

That was what the new york times thought of my campaign. And yet, here I am on your show, employee of the new york types, and be afraid of being on your show. I am not afraid of being on your rogan show.

No, bottom line is, what every communications director knows is that there is a new world of media out there. And as such as nbc, cbs or the new york times, IT is podcast, IT is joe rogan. IT is fox noose.

IT is Young people who nobody in the democratic leadership has about, who have youtube programs to attract millions of people. That is the reality. Can you ignore that? That is insane.

Anyone of things you could ignore that reality is crazy in my experience, not that i've been on millions of these shows, the people is that I talk to treat me with respect. And I think you cannot be no, oh, rogan said this. He says that, yeah, so what you know, my wife disagrees me on this that issue.

So what you can't run away from somebody because they may have said something sloppy of something that you disagree with that life, but mostly important when you go on the show, what do you say? So your rogue ask you, what do you think about the factor? We have more in common wealth inequality than over before.

And that question, what do you think about the factor with the major country? Anane not talk about, how about I want an insurance company ties. Why are we paying the highest Prices the world for prescription? One can talk about that.

I want get money for the former. That's the problem. So yeah, you've GTA go on different outlets. Of course you do. But most importantly, you ve got to know what you believe and what you're prepared to fight for and what your vision for the future of this country is.

Do you think that the democratic party is really prepared to go where IT needs to go in taking the lessons that you're laying out here and really moving ahead with them? I know if you know that former speaker Nancy policy came on a podcast by our colleague lu I N O and was presented with your critique e word for a work of a democratic party.

And if I can put IT politely, SHE dismissed IT and said, well, I completely disagree with what he's saying, by the way, commonly acted Better than senator Sanders in vermont on election day. He pointed out, you've lost your races for president and democratic prime. Mary.

well, I tell you, I got sixty three percent of the vote. I would spend one, nick, on advertising in front. Look, I would expect Nancy and we've known each other for years, and we've work together on some issues like the american rescue plan, which I thought was very consequential piece of legislation.

But you know, Nancy and I have different visions as to the future. I think Nancy views may reverberate here inside the bet way through a lot of the pundits, the consultants and politicians agreed with Nancy. I suspect to go out to the hint lands, you will find the most people agree with me.

senator, looking forward to not just the idea that the party will take what you're saying and perhaps run with IT, but that IT needs to be embodied in a candidate who can win when you close your eyes and think of who can lead the party out of this very decisive and for many democrat devastating loss. What do you see? Not necessarily, who do you see me? Maybe there is a who in your mind, but what is that future candidate?

Look, it's a candidate preferably, but not necessarily somebody from the working class who can speak to working class people who will fight to end all forms of bigotry in this country, but is mostly prepared to take on the big money interests who today have an unprecedented level of economic and political power.

With the advent of all the new technologies out there, Michael, in terms of what official intelligence in terms of robotics at seta, we truthfully have the capability now of creating a society where all of our people have a decent standard of living. Yeah, we can actually wipe out poverty. We don't need to help people sleeping out on the streets.

The question is, who will control the utilization of that technology and who will benefit from IT. So we need to have somebody who primarily is prepared to stand up to the ruling class of americans, say, you know what, we'd like your entrepreneur capabilities, but you got to control. You agreed you can no longer have IT all. You're going to be an important part of the future, but you're not going to own in control the future. We need somebody like that.

Do you think that if democrats do me voters where they are and connect with the pain and they pitch the kind of progressive policies that you're advocating for here, especially on economics that is the winning combination? Or has trust in the democratic party for other reasons we've been talking about here been strained, if not broken, in a way that means that even getting IT right here is not really possible.

A very good question .

because there's been a huge loss of faith government.

That's right. That's that's right. You're right on that.

And I will tell you that even within the convinces of the democrats caucus, and I don't talk about things set up behind close, but you'll have democrats U. S. center. Stand up and they hate the .

government or the party.

but they hate the party and they understand. And ah you're onto another issue which we don't have time to get into right now. Even when government does the right thing, you got a bureaucracy which is so slow and implementation a policy that people don't see IT when they should be singer. But that's a whole other resume is another resume.

perhaps another conversation. People do have faith in government. How do your solutions, which do require a tremendous role for our government?

How do you sell them? Well, that's that's that's A A good question and I think he's well at the airline. Masks of the world will say, look, government can do anything. It's going to be the private sector .

cut IT this message, right?

right? And you know, look, yon mosques are very, very aggressive and capable business. Very impressive for what is accomplished.

And he says, I could do more in a week than the government can do in five years. In some ways, he is right. The problem is, at the end of his efforts, he ends up making zillions of dollars.

And working class people are on any Better off, all right? The alternative is to say, all let the government do IT right now, because the government that is inefficient and bureaucratic, right? So people are looking to say, are we ve got the greed of the ruling class? They do things pretty well, but they end up with all the money.

And the working class ends up with the lowest end of living on the u. step. Or you got a government which is very slow and doing anything.

So that that is IT seems where we are as a nation, we ve got to do Better than that. What's the answer? The answer is to bring Young people, people into government who believe in a mission to improve the lives of people.

When you're work in the post office, where you work in the veterans administration, whether you work in social security, pay these people will give them good management. Let them be proud of the important work that that you do. No more important work in this country than being a public school teacher, all right. Yet we underpay those teachers will put among the terrible conditions. Choices got to be to modernize government, make government work for ordinary people, health care all of the and right, if other countries around the world can have national healthcare programs, so can in the united states, america.

when not dumped under people. I have a final question for you when, from point last time, many democrats organize themselves into what was loosely described, sometimes by them, as the resistance, that resistance many democrat now think, and they are pushing the party further and further to the left, leading to things like a primary in twenty twenty, in which people like common here is made commitments to left wing causes that came back to hunter and .

made IT possible. I O, I.

this is my final question. Do you worry that the party could be heading down .

that path again of, I said, and that's impressive. You know, it's the things that camera was talking about, the things I was like. Every one of those issues is enormously popular. So you talk about.

no, no, no. I mean, i'm socializes.

I know.

I don't know. Yes, setting combo aside, I think we are about to tell me, as Michael, many of the economic issues on the left are very popular with many americans as economic policies.

And we post them all in missouri. You may have followed in this election, missouri, a conservative state, fifty eight percent of the people voted to raise the money wage. Oh, by the way, we haven't able to do that here when those policies .

were in isolation on the ballot, separate from a democratic party and candidate Carrying all the baggage that that we're talking about here.

The point is if the craters were focusing on those issues. And saying, g how come up one republican wants to raise the minimum wage to at least the king box? And o how come one republican doesn't believe that health care is a human right?

How come one republican doesn't want to expand social security so that the elderly people can live their lives with dignity? You put them on the depends, ve, but you don't offer anything. You are on the defensive.

right? I means worth saying that many of those missouri voters voted for those progressive economic policies as ballot measures and then turned around and voted for trump, which means it's deeper than policy.

Well, maybe next time will go to it's deep than policy. Senator.

I know you have to go. I don't know you've been thinking about this, but um you eighty three and ichael I did know that this .

is a percept of the types investigative and very good running for president depending .

on the moment in the candidates can be a very age defined question and you still sound like a candidate for president to me I mean is that totally out of the question?

Yeah I don't think the american people, what a president is, one hundred and four years of the age, you know you'd be eighty. Well now the answer is I would say it's you. I'm very proud that the people have mot and very large numbers reelected me for a fourth term of very proud of that. And that's where we are. All right.

thanks.

Thank you for time. Thank you. Bye, bye.

What do you back?

After the movie free willie became a hit, word got out that the star of the film, a killer willing cao, was sick and still living in a tiny pole in a mexican amusement park. Fans were outraged. Kids demand release productions in the new york times comes the goods whale, a story about the wildly ambitious science experiment to return kiko to the ocean.

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If Kennedy is confirmed, his resistance to public health measures and his embrace of alternative medicine could lead to fierce clashes with the agencies that he would oversee. And on thursday, the governor of new york dramatically revived a first in the nation plan to fund mass transit by calling cars in manhattan busiest neighborhoods. And i'm proud to announce we have found a path.

define the mta, reduced congestion and keep millions of dollars in the pockets of our commuters.

Governor Cathy hole said that the program, known as congestion pricing, would begin in january with a toll of nine dollars per car down from the original Price tag of fifteen dollars per car. Oko had cancelled the plan over the summer because he argued that original tool was too high. Remember, you can catch a new episode of the interview right here tomorrow.

This week, David mark casie talks with doctor elen weed, a long time advocate for and practitioner medical assistance in dying. Sometimes I struggle when I see a Young, beautiful person choosing to leave earlier than they needed to, but I believe so strongly in basic human rights. If that person says that they can live in with this condition, I will honor their wishes.

To this episode was produced by Jessica chan, Michael Simon Johnson and na feldman IT was edited by peach coward, lisa co. And precision William with help from Michael ben wall contains original music by marion lizana and pat massa, and was engineered by Chris wood. Our theme music is by june, running red and benllech k of wonderly. Special thanks to lexi deal please a layer read option and shame gold worker.

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