Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to here's the thing.
Speaker 1: In his first political race for US Senate in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two, a horn rimmed, disheveled young socialist named Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders lost badly, getting only two percent of the vote.
Speaker 1: In one he had his first electoral victory by just
Speaker 1: barely becoming mayor of Burlington, Vermont, by ten votes. By
Speaker 1: two thousand six, he was a popular congressman and easily
Speaker 1: won the national Senate seat he had chased decades before.
Speaker 1: And while he lost the Democratic Party nomination last year,
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders has become someone with real influence in the party.
Speaker 1: His new book, Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution, gives
Speaker 1: others the tools to make change as well. In her
Speaker 1: new book, Hillary Clinton wrote that Sanders quote didn't get
Speaker 1: into the race to make sure a Democrat won the
Speaker 1: White House. He got in to disrupt the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: It's an assessment Bernie Sanders agrees with. I thought that
Speaker 1: it was absolutely imperative that the country needed to hear
Speaker 1: from somebody who was more progressive than Hillary Clinton. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are ideas that absolutely needed to get out there. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that would not have gotten out there if a
Speaker 1: progressive was not in the race. But I guess on
Speaker 1: a more personal level, do you stare down at this
Speaker 1: black diamond ski run and say, I'm do I have
Speaker 1: the emergy? Well? What fears did you have? You see,
Speaker 1: we started in a different position. We started I think
Speaker 1: the first polls had us at three or four or five.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like we were in this race and
Speaker 1: you know, we're forty percent and we were close to
Speaker 1: winning it. So for us, what the campaign was about
Speaker 1: was the first of all, formulate the positions that we
Speaker 1: believed in strongly. And many of those positions, by the way,
Speaker 1: today are more or less mainstream, but they weren't when
Speaker 1: we began a campaign for fifteen dollar and now, in
Speaker 1: minimum age, a trillion dollars to rebuild a crumbling infrastructure.
Speaker 1: I'm just a few years ago I proposed a trillion.
Speaker 1: People said, oh my god, that's much too much. Four
Speaker 1: hundred billion is about all that we could afoid. Now
Speaker 1: even Trump talks about a trillion dollars to rebuild our infrastructure,
Speaker 1: and you do, no fears, no doubts. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you must have had I believe what I believe
Speaker 1: and I believe the country has got to move in
Speaker 1: a much more progressive agenda. I think we have to
Speaker 1: deal with the horrific levels of income and wealth inequality.
Speaker 1: We have to deal with the corrupt political system in
Speaker 1: which billionaires are able to buy elections. We have to
Speaker 1: address the issue of climate change and transformer energy system.
Speaker 1: These are issues that I've been talking about for a
Speaker 1: very very long time. These are issues that I think
Speaker 1: the majority of the American people believe in. And what
Speaker 1: motivated me was simply to go out and say, look,
Speaker 1: this is the reality facing America. We can't continue to
Speaker 1: have a situation with so few have so much and
Speaker 1: so many have so little. We can't continue a political
Speaker 1: system where the Cooch brothers alone are able to spend
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to by elections.
Speaker 1: That's not what this country it's supposed to be about. Well,
Speaker 1: those were my ideas, but what was interesting is how
Speaker 1: quickly it became apparent that millions and millions of people
Speaker 1: shared those ideas, that people wanted to think outside of
Speaker 1: the box, that they were prepared to look at more
Speaker 1: progressive solutions than what Democrats and Republicans have been bringing
Speaker 1: food and um, do you ever ask yourself if Hillary
Speaker 1: is likely the winner, do you think she's probably gonna win? So?
Speaker 1: How do I influence her to express the opinions I want?
Speaker 1: I don't need to run if I can get her
Speaker 1: to do some But the only way, the only way
Speaker 1: you can do that is when people themselves respond to
Speaker 1: specific ideas. All right, What we found during the campaign,
Speaker 1: for example, just one example, is that the idea that
Speaker 1: the United States of America remains the only major country
Speaker 1: on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people. Okay,
Speaker 1: I livety miles away from Canada, they do it. As
Speaker 1: you know, throughout Europe, healthcare is a right. And on
Speaker 1: top of that, in this country we end up spending
Speaker 1: almost twice as much per capital. It's not like we're
Speaker 1: saving money. We're spending a fortune on healthcare per person.
Speaker 1: We pay by far the highest prices of the world
Speaker 1: for prescription drugs. Question, why aren't we doing what every
Speaker 1: other major country on Earth is noting? What do you
Speaker 1: think we're not? Well, Obviously it has to do with
Speaker 1: the power of the insurance companies and the drug companies
Speaker 1: and the whole medical industrial complex. They are enormously powerful.
Speaker 1: Then the doctors themselves. Doctors are powerful too, but the
Speaker 1: insurance companies and the drug companies have far more powerful.
Speaker 1: And what you find is that the drug companies have
Speaker 1: spent hundreds of billions of dollars in lobbying in can
Speaker 1: paying contributions to make certain that there is no law
Speaker 1: on the books to prevent the drug company for doubling
Speaker 1: or tripling the price that you pay for medicine today.
Speaker 1: And the result of that is we pay far more
Speaker 1: than the people of any other country. So when you
Speaker 1: raise these issues during your campaign, you know what people
Speaker 1: saw nodding their heads and they say, yeah, that's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: that's absurd. We should not be paying the highest prices
Speaker 1: of the world. Drug companies have got to be regulated
Speaker 1: in one form or another. So the drug companies are saying,
Speaker 1: no government regulation of the pricing of our of our products.
Speaker 1: We were we were afraid that that would be and
Speaker 1: likely would be a component of a universal healthcare Canadian
Speaker 1: style health care. Here. What about the insurance companies they want?
Speaker 1: If what is the function of an insurance company, it's
Speaker 1: not to provide quality care across the effect the ways
Speaker 1: to make as much money, as course they possibly can.
Speaker 1: And UM, you know what I think makes sense to
Speaker 1: me is we have right now a fairly popular, successful
Speaker 1: program called Medicare. It works pretty well for people sixty
Speaker 1: five years of age rol why not expand it to everybody?
Speaker 1: To Medicare will become a universal health exactly now, UM,
Speaker 1: aside from the cries of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries,
Speaker 1: what are things that that actually happened that transpired as
Speaker 1: a result of universal healthcare and Canada that the medical
Speaker 1: profession warned about here, meaning, what's something you see happening
Speaker 1: they that that didn't go well. No system on earth
Speaker 1: is a perfect and the Canadians will be the first
Speaker 1: to tell you their system is not perfect. But pole
Speaker 1: after poll shows that there is enormous pride in Canada
Speaker 1: with their system. Of course, very few of those people
Speaker 1: and Canadians want to come to the American system. They
Speaker 1: have problems for non emergency type services for certain types
Speaker 1: of surgeries, knee replacements and so forth. They're waiting time
Speaker 1: so longer than they are comfortable with. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: if you need to see a doctor, you can get
Speaker 1: to a doctor pretty quickly. And sometimes when we talk
Speaker 1: about the Nadian system. We forget, you know, let me
Speaker 1: tell you something. If you think that most Americans haven
Speaker 1: call the doctor's office today and walk in in a
Speaker 1: few hours, you are mistaken. There are waiting lines in
Speaker 1: this country as well. So the good news is we
Speaker 1: can learn a lot from the Canadians. We can learn
Speaker 1: a lot from other countries around the world, all of
Speaker 1: them who have been doing universal healthcare for many decades.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about growing up. You grew
Speaker 1: up in Brooklyn and your father what did he do
Speaker 1: for a living? He was a pain salesman, he was.
Speaker 1: Do you have any siblings. Ye? I got an older
Speaker 1: brother who lives in Oxford, England. And what did he do?
Speaker 1: It's fair living. He was a social worker in England.
Speaker 1: He was a social work in England and he left
Speaker 1: to move to England many years ago. He's been over
Speaker 1: there for many, many years ago. And just the two
Speaker 1: of you, Yes, And what did your mom do? She
Speaker 1: was she was housewife. Right. Who do you think had
Speaker 1: a greater influence on you or do they have an
Speaker 1: equivalent to influence on you in terms of your politics?
Speaker 1: Of your parents or your grandparents for that matter. Well,
Speaker 1: Mike Paul politics. I think developed from the fact that
Speaker 1: we lived in a rent control department in Brooklyn. It's
Speaker 1: a small, three and a half room apartment. My father
Speaker 1: worked very hard, and he had a steady job his
Speaker 1: entire life. He worked for one company, Keystone Paint and
Speaker 1: Varnish Company. But you haven't made a lot of money.
Speaker 1: And so the fact that we did not have the
Speaker 1: money to do the things that my mother wanted us
Speaker 1: to do, rather modest things, impacted my life. It's a
Speaker 1: modest thing your mother wanted you to do. While she
Speaker 1: always wanted to own her own home, small home never happened.
Speaker 1: So her dream was someday she would own her own home,
Speaker 1: and she didn't. So we lived in a rent control
Speaker 1: department for our entire lives. Is growing up and when
Speaker 1: she died young, and she never ended up owning her
Speaker 1: own home. Uh, you know, vacations we didn't do much of.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not that we were poor, we were
Speaker 1: lower middle class. But money was always an obstacle in
Speaker 1: a problem. And what I learned at that age was
Speaker 1: that that problem, that reality exists for people all across
Speaker 1: this country. And the idea of trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how we can improve lives working people is something that
Speaker 1: I expect settled into my brain when I was a
Speaker 1: very young kid. So is it safe to say you
Speaker 1: don't want people to be given certain things in this world?
Speaker 1: But what you want people to not have to spend
Speaker 1: too much money on other necessities so they can have
Speaker 1: some money liberated to do other things. And I wouldn't
Speaker 1: tell me how you would phrase it. I would say,
Speaker 1: that's progressive ism to you? Is that? You know Franklin
Speaker 1: Dillon or Roosevelt, in a not widely remembered speech I
Speaker 1: think it was nineteen forty four, in his State of
Speaker 1: the Union speech a year before he died, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, in so many words on paraphrasing, you know,
Speaker 1: we have a constitution, which is great. We have a
Speaker 1: bill of rights, guarantees you the right freedom of speech,
Speaker 1: freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, etcetera. At such all
Speaker 1: those enormously important rights. Doesn't guarante you the right to
Speaker 1: help care, doesn't guarantee you the right to at least
Speaker 1: have a job that pays you a living wage. And
Speaker 1: what he was talking about was the need to broaden
Speaker 1: our understanding of what human rights are from beyond political rights.
Speaker 1: A freedom of speech, freedom of religion, to economic rights.
Speaker 1: So when I talk about the right of all people
Speaker 1: that have healthcare, I believe that is a human right.
Speaker 1: The right of people not to live in abysmal poverty,
Speaker 1: I think that's a human right when we live in
Speaker 1: the richest country in the history of the world. So
Speaker 1: the goal then is to create an economy that works
Speaker 1: for all of our people, not the kind of economy
Speaker 1: we have today that works very very successfully for the
Speaker 1: one percent and creates enormous levels of income and wealth disparity.
Speaker 1: My father, who was a political science teacher were the
Speaker 1: end of the taught American government economics in the public
Speaker 1: high school on Long Island. He would say to me
Speaker 1: that that essentially his distillation of the Reagan years was
Speaker 1: Reagan would say, you know, your taxes are so high
Speaker 1: you might not be able to have a swimming pool
Speaker 1: at your house. And if you there's things you want
Speaker 1: to buy, and it's your business what you want to buy,
Speaker 1: it's your business what you want to do with them.
Speaker 1: And so we need to cut making sure of the
Speaker 1: kids in the Inn city have clean needles and condoms.
Speaker 1: He's saying, well, this euphemistically, I mean there's things that
Speaker 1: the government is paying for that we shouldn't be paying
Speaker 1: for because that's preventing you from buying things you want
Speaker 1: to buy. And what Reagan wanted to say to people
Speaker 1: was don't feel bad about that. You want to deliberate
Speaker 1: them on on an emotional level, these people aren't gonna
Speaker 1: get taken care of and that's okay. We weren't meant
Speaker 1: to pay for that. Well that that ideology. I mean,
Speaker 1: you thought Reagan was conservative. Where the Republican Party is
Speaker 1: now the spot at the right of where Reagan was
Speaker 1: incredibly enough. And as I said before, this is what
Speaker 1: the Koch brothers believe, and this is the ideology that
Speaker 1: people like Coaul Ryan and many others now Except what
Speaker 1: they say is, look, every person is an island unto
Speaker 1: them selves, all right, And if you can go out
Speaker 1: and make a whole lot of money, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: great health care, your kid's gonna have a great opportunity
Speaker 1: to go to college. You know, live in an ice house.
Speaker 1: But if you are eighty years of age and you
Speaker 1: don't have much money, I'm sorry. It is not the
Speaker 1: obligation of the government to have a program like Medicare
Speaker 1: to take care of you if you're a worker. And
Speaker 1: this is true, this is what some of these guys
Speaker 1: actually believe. And unemployment is high in the region. And
Speaker 1: I can hire you for three bucks an hour or
Speaker 1: four bucks an hour. We don't want the government mandating
Speaker 1: a minimum wage. You're gonna work for me. That's your choice.
Speaker 1: And if you the choices between going hungary, you're working
Speaker 1: for three or four bucks. Now I offer you as
Speaker 1: a wage of what I think is profitable for my
Speaker 1: company to you take it or leave it. But you
Speaker 1: should not be guaranteed. We should the government should not
Speaker 1: be in the business of retirement security, i e. Social security.
Speaker 1: So if you look at the if you look at
Speaker 1: the Koch Brothers agenda, their go long term not tomorrow,
Speaker 1: is to abolish social security, man a cam Medicaid, federal
Speaker 1: laity to education, and you're seeing Trump moving in those directions.
Speaker 1: So you got Betsy Divoce who is now a Secretary
Speaker 1: of Education does not believe in public education. In the
Speaker 1: House right now, there is legislation that came out of
Speaker 1: the relevant Committee which would make move a social security
Speaker 1: toward a private type system. So all of that ideology
Speaker 1: is now what pervades the Republican Ombudian. That's where they
Speaker 1: want to go. Now, when you say that Divocet doesn't
Speaker 1: believe in public education, you mean she doesn't believe in
Speaker 1: it in the way you believe in it, or she
Speaker 1: literally doesn't believe in public Generally speaking, I think it's
Speaker 1: fair to say that her belief is that we should
Speaker 1: move towards abolishing public education, privatizing schooling, privatizing the school,
Speaker 1: that's the whole thing, Privatizing infrastructure, privatizing social security, privatizing
Speaker 1: the via, privatizing the prisons, privatizing the postal service. Every
Speaker 1: one of these issues is being addressed and went forward
Speaker 1: by the Republicans. Um in your progress of vision, at
Speaker 1: what point do we decide how much money people can make?
Speaker 1: Many We're going to tax people to take their money
Speaker 1: from them, to build housing for everybody, to provide medical
Speaker 1: care for everybody, to provide free education for everybody, all
Speaker 1: of which I'm in favor of. I mean, I would
Speaker 1: like to see the poor taken care of. I think
Speaker 1: we at what point do we do we worry about
Speaker 1: its impact on the overall America. First of all, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't use the word quote unquote taking care of the poor.
Speaker 1: I think what you want to do is create opportunities
Speaker 1: for low income people. It means provide excellent childcare, public education,
Speaker 1: the opportunity to go to college, job training, so that
Speaker 1: people are not poor. Now, there are some people who
Speaker 1: are not going to work, people with severe disabilities, and
Speaker 1: we have a moral responsibility to take care of them,
Speaker 1: to take care of senior citizens. But I would hope
Speaker 1: that the goal is to move towards the ending of
Speaker 1: poverty and getting lower income people into the economy so
Speaker 1: they can earn their own way. UH. I happen to
Speaker 1: believe that what we have right now UH is an
Speaker 1: obscenity in terms of distribution of wealth and income. We
Speaker 1: now have the top one tenth of one percent owning
Speaker 1: almost as much wealth as the bottom. In the last
Speaker 1: forty years, we have seen a massive transfer of wealth.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about trillions of dollars going from the pockets
Speaker 1: of the middle class into the top one percent and
Speaker 1: in the top one tenth of one percent. And I
Speaker 1: think what we have got to say is, of course
Speaker 1: they're going to be richer people, and of course they're
Speaker 1: going to be poorer people, but that level of wealth inequality,
Speaker 1: and in terms of scare us, we should scare us,
Speaker 1: should scare us. In terms of income, you know, you
Speaker 1: go around the country, You've got mom work and dad working,
Speaker 1: the kids are working. But fifty two percent of all
Speaker 1: new income in recent years is going to the top
Speaker 1: one percent. So you've got a great economy for the
Speaker 1: people on top, But the middle class for decades has
Speaker 1: been shrinking. People are working long rous for low wages. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got to deal with that. And yes, I believe
Speaker 1: in progressive taxation. Yeah, I believe that if you're making
Speaker 1: millions of dollars a year, you're gonna have to pay
Speaker 1: a higher percentage of your income in taxes than somebody
Speaker 1: in the middle class. You know, that's what a nation
Speaker 1: is about. And one of the things that I worry
Speaker 1: about very much is the level of greed. You know
Speaker 1: that we now see you see people making billions and
Speaker 1: billions and billions of dollars, and they say that's not enough.
Speaker 1: I need more tax breaks, and I want you to
Speaker 1: cut education, and I want you to cut Medicaid, and
Speaker 1: I want you to cut programs for lower income people
Speaker 1: because I need more tax breaks. Because you know, five
Speaker 1: billion that I have is not enough. We've got to
Speaker 1: deal with that whole issue of greed. What we do
Speaker 1: want is an entrepreneurial society. We want people to be
Speaker 1: able to invest in new products, new businesses. And that's great,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, we cannot be
Speaker 1: a nation in which a tiny percentage of people has
Speaker 1: unbelievable wealth while so many other people are start gaining.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you this, this is not just an
Speaker 1: American issue. Right now. In this planet on Earth, the
Speaker 1: six wealthiest people on this planet have more wealth in
Speaker 1: the bottom half of the world's population two point seven.
Speaker 1: It is crazy. It is crazy, and we got to
Speaker 1: deal with that. What would be a tax policy you
Speaker 1: would have sought. You want to raise the highest rate
Speaker 1: to what during Eisenhower's period, I think the higher syncome
Speaker 1: taxes something like that for the very, very very wealthy.
Speaker 1: And these are marginal rates. I mean that means at
Speaker 1: the very top, that's what you're gonna be paying. Uh.
Speaker 1: But also you have a situation where there are a
Speaker 1: lot of very profitable, large corporations. A general electric being
Speaker 1: one who in a giving year could make billions of
Speaker 1: dollars is making billions of dollars not paying a nickel
Speaker 1: and federal income tax. How is that possible? Because you
Speaker 1: stash your profits in the Cayman Islands and other tax savings. Whither,
Speaker 1: you're either you're an American company that benefits from being
Speaker 1: an American company or not. You want all that, you
Speaker 1: want all the benefits and other responsibilities. Yeah, well you
Speaker 1: out of quoting from my speeches here. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that is I may do that from time to time.
Speaker 1: But you know, that is the issue. And it's certainly
Speaker 1: not just General Electric. Many of these companies. There's a
Speaker 1: funny thing that was responsible for that. One administration was
Speaker 1: responsible for that variety Republican and Democrat, but it is
Speaker 1: um there's a building in the Cayman Islands. This is
Speaker 1: really funny, and we got a picture of it. One building.
Speaker 1: I think it's a fourth story building, the Nomity Corporate Corporations.
Speaker 1: It houses something like eighteen thousand. You know, it's sold
Speaker 1: just like postal address for a corporation, their headquarters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's up above Duncan Donuts there. Now, I'm not that
Speaker 1: interested in the race and the campaign and the and
Speaker 1: the warfare analogies and so forth. But well, I'll just
Speaker 1: open with this illustration, which is I lived in an
Speaker 1: apartment building on Central Park West, and I was walking
Speaker 1: out of my building and I was walking then Senator
Speaker 1: Barack Obama, who was campaigning for the nomination, and Uh,
Speaker 1: I said high to him as I was passing him,
Speaker 1: and I walked out and thought, I think I met
Speaker 1: it under my breath, good luck to you, pal. You
Speaker 1: know she's gonna kick your ass. Her and the husband,
Speaker 1: in their whole network, which I've met these people over him,
Speaker 1: I've always felt, you know what I mean, It's always
Speaker 1: like you always feel the weight and the heft of
Speaker 1: the Clinton machine when you're around them and their friends
Speaker 1: and associates. They're so networked. And then of course he
Speaker 1: makes history and he wins the nomination. Then he beats
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War hero in the race. Unbelievable. What were
Speaker 1: the early vulnerabilities of Hillary Clinton's that you said? What
Speaker 1: wasn't even a vulnerability? We were. This is who we
Speaker 1: ended up taking on. We ended up taking on virtually
Speaker 1: all of the money class. Uh. We ended up taking
Speaker 1: on every Democratic governor in America. We took on all
Speaker 1: the United States senators Democratic senators except for one, Jeff
Speaker 1: Merkley of Oregon ends make almost little Democratic members of
Speaker 1: the House, almost little Democratic mayors. So we took on
Speaker 1: the entire democratic establishment, all of virtually all of the
Speaker 1: super delegates. That's what we were up against. But one
Speaker 1: of the things that we understood from day one is
Speaker 1: that it was important for us not to develop a
Speaker 1: superpack that we were. We said to the people, look, um,
Speaker 1: we're not going out the billionaires. We don't have a superpack.
Speaker 1: When people can contribute a hundred thousand bucks, no pack, right,
Speaker 1: no pack, and we end up is is now well known,
Speaker 1: getting millions of contributors uh contributions averaging twenty seven dollars
Speaker 1: a piece, and that was historical. See and what it showed.
Speaker 1: It showed a couple of things. It showed that if
Speaker 1: you stood up and were prepared to fight for working people,
Speaker 1: working people would contribute to your campaigns. There was a
Speaker 1: study of the people who contributed to my campaign done
Speaker 1: by I think was the l A Times, and it
Speaker 1: kind of almost moved me. It was hard to read
Speaker 1: about the number of low income people, people who really
Speaker 1: did not have a lot of money, who flipped in
Speaker 1: ten bucks at went bucks. They gave what they can
Speaker 1: and during the cost of the campaign, with one vague exception,
Speaker 1: it really wasn't. In that case. I never did a
Speaker 1: high dollar fundraise. I never went to a rich person's house.
Speaker 1: And we had all these folks there, you know, the
Speaker 1: degree that we did fundraises, they were, you know, fifty
Speaker 1: bucks and you're in a hundred bucks and you're in
Speaker 1: who was the man or a woman or even just
Speaker 1: give us one name of someone. They might have been
Speaker 1: part of a group who helped build out that financing
Speaker 1: strategy for you, who was responsible? I'll tell you what happened. Uh,
Speaker 1: And we stumbled on this and and um, we raised
Speaker 1: the vast majority of our money online, and we used
Speaker 1: the group called Revolution Messaging and a guy named they
Speaker 1: have a lot of good folks there and wells one
Speaker 1: guy named Tim T. Garris who worked very closely with us.
Speaker 1: And uh, Tim, you know, did it extraordinarily good job.
Speaker 1: And it turned out what we learned and it blew
Speaker 1: our minds. I think in the first couple of days,
Speaker 1: we're his six million dollars. You know, wow, who could
Speaker 1: have believed that, you know? And we ended up raising
Speaker 1: several hundred million dollars. Point is that people are disgusted
Speaker 1: with the status quo. They are disgusted with the establishment.
Speaker 1: They want real and profound change. And it turns out
Speaker 1: to everybody's surprised. Yeah, they're willing to put or fifty
Speaker 1: bucks into a campaign, uh that seeks to transform the
Speaker 1: United States of America. The only reason I asked that
Speaker 1: question about an individual name of a man or woman
Speaker 1: is because in my mind, they obviously deserve to take
Speaker 1: a huge bow that that that energy exists on the
Speaker 1: other side of the aisle as well for people who
Speaker 1: sit there and say, God, how do we get here?
Speaker 1: You know, well, let me let me back it up
Speaker 1: a little bit to the democracy in America today is
Speaker 1: under siege and we should be very clear about that.
Speaker 1: As a result of this disastrous Supreme Court decision on citizens,
Speaker 1: you know, you're life to Foard decision. Billionaires, large corporations
Speaker 1: are now able to spend as much money as they
Speaker 1: want on a political limitless, limitless, and they're doing it.
Speaker 1: You know, they are spending a handful of billionaires of
Speaker 1: spending just unbelieva by the Cokes and the Mercer's exactly
Speaker 1: are exactly so to my mind, and what it is,
Speaker 1: it's not only the thing are buying elections. Then the
Speaker 1: other side, the good guys, so to speak, have to
Speaker 1: spend an enormous amount of money. You have to play
Speaker 1: the same game raising money. You would not believe how
Speaker 1: much time. I'm well aware. Okay, you probably get hit
Speaker 1: up every day. This is my major issue campaign financial Okay,
Speaker 1: all right? And it should be because it's on the
Speaker 1: nin of everything exactly. It's the good lynchpin of everything.
Speaker 1: You're right. I worked for many many years up in Maine.
Speaker 1: I was involved in the main theme campaign thing twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, got involved in the nine Sundays program, Marvin
Speaker 1: cal But the Shorenstein Center, and and then the thing
Speaker 1: that we all came to was was that we don't
Speaker 1: need ceilings on spending. We need floors. We need to
Speaker 1: say that if there's media saturation for a statewide campaign,
Speaker 1: is media saturation is let's say, thirty five million dollars.
Speaker 1: If you've got thirty five million dollars, you can reach
Speaker 1: everybody with your message and people can spend more than you.
Speaker 1: We've gotta make sure that you have at least thirty
Speaker 1: five million. We have to floors, not ceilings. What do
Speaker 1: you think about that? I think there are a number
Speaker 1: of ways to skin the cut. The position that I
Speaker 1: feel comfortable with this is to say, you want to
Speaker 1: run against me, You go out, you show that there's
Speaker 1: a level of support for your candidacy. You've got you
Speaker 1: raise five but ten dollar contributions from X number of people. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then for every dollar more you raise, uh, the
Speaker 1: government will put in five dollars. There was a matching
Speaker 1: matching um because I would The other thing I learned
Speaker 1: at that time we should took about the corporate media
Speaker 1: and their role in this whole thing. Uh that you know,
Speaker 1: the number one or I shouldn't say the number one,
Speaker 1: but among the top enemies and among the top obstacles
Speaker 1: to this campaign, findistery from is the National Association of Broadcasters.
Speaker 1: They're shoving as much money in their pockets with these
Speaker 1: politic lands that they possibly can. During those cycles, Uh,
Speaker 1: Citizens United was a real boom from them. Horrible. Ye,
Speaker 1: you're right. We're not going to move towards medicare for all.
Speaker 1: We're not going to deal with education, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: deal with infrastructure, and certainly not deal with climate change
Speaker 1: unless we've got to handle foreign for foreign pit So
Speaker 1: what you got on that issue. It is clear that
Speaker 1: Citizens United has to be overturned, and we need to
Speaker 1: move towards public funding of elections so that billionaires cannot
Speaker 1: dictate public policy. The Koch Brothers invite Republican candidates who
Speaker 1: will line up. They just line up, Sheldon Addle system
Speaker 1: Nov They line up, what can I do for you?
Speaker 1: Mr Coke? And that's why the Republican Party is to
Speaker 1: a large degree where it is today. So campaign finance reform,
Speaker 1: moving to public funding of elections is to me enormously important.
Speaker 1: Some of the money spent on campaigns today is used
Speaker 1: for political sultan's like Ed Rollins. He's the person that
Speaker 1: gets the dirt on opponents as well as on the
Speaker 1: candidate that hired him. The first thing I do is
Speaker 1: I sit down and I say pretend I'm your priest.
Speaker 1: You confess all your confess all your sens. I've heard
Speaker 1: it all. You know, I don't care. They always lie
Speaker 1: and when then it does come out, they go, you know,
Speaker 1: I never thought that was gonna happen. Take a listen
Speaker 1: to Ed Rollins Life in the Muck of Politics on
Speaker 1: Here's the thing dot Org. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
Speaker 1: listening to. Here's the thing. Bernie Sanders is a distant
Speaker 1: cousin of comedian Larry David. Hello, I'm not the Hello.
Speaker 1: Let's let's do that. They both grew up in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: and David said during the campaign he would watch Sanders
Speaker 1: and repeat everything he said. What David recognized the dialect,
Speaker 1: and he knew he could quote talk like that, so
Speaker 1: he did on Saturday Night Live. I'm the only candidate
Speaker 1: up here was not a billionaire. I don't have a
Speaker 1: super pack. I don't even have a backpack. I carry
Speaker 1: my stuff around loose in my arms like a you know,
Speaker 1: between classes. This abrasive, rumpled outsider has become an unlikely
Speaker 1: leader for the left, especially after Hillary Clinton's defeat last November.
Speaker 1: You know it, um, the Democrats in Vermont have there.
Speaker 1: You know, they like every other state, people go to
Speaker 1: go to go to a hotel and I gather and
Speaker 1: they celebrate their victories and and for the first time
Speaker 1: in many years, I didn't go, which I think people noticed,
Speaker 1: but I just was not inclined. You know, we had
Speaker 1: won some good victories and Vermont young Man one for
Speaker 1: Lieutenant governor was very progressive, but I was in no
Speaker 1: mood to celebrate. It was. It was quite a depressing night.
Speaker 1: What do you think you did wrong? I don't want
Speaker 1: you know, I'm asked that question a million times, and
Speaker 1: I don't campaign. But I think here's what the facts are,
Speaker 1: all right. The Democratic Party in general is in trouble
Speaker 1: and has been in trouble for for a long time. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the last nine years or so, Democrats have lost
Speaker 1: not just the White House and the Senate, in the
Speaker 1: House in Washington's right. In fact, that like twenty five
Speaker 1: states in Americans with the Democratic Party is in some
Speaker 1: cases non existent. And I visited those states were extremely weak. UM,
Speaker 1: and these are some of the poorest states in the
Speaker 1: United States. When I see what she did wrong, what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to interject is that is it forget about
Speaker 1: what she did wrong? Was she handed the bill for
Speaker 1: that where she handed the bill for a week enervated,
Speaker 1: unimaginative Democratic Party. I think that the problem is over
Speaker 1: the years, UM, money has played a you know, we
Speaker 1: talked about campaign funding, and money has had a very
Speaker 1: significant influence on the Democratic body. So I think, you know,
Speaker 1: if you look back to the years of FDR or
Speaker 1: even Harry Truman. And you go to a person on
Speaker 1: the street and you say, which is the party of
Speaker 1: the working class in America? Everybody knew it, right, it
Speaker 1: was the Democratic Party. You go outside today and you say,
Speaker 1: what is the party of the of the working class
Speaker 1: of remic. Well, maybe, but no one believes that the Democrats.
Speaker 1: Maybe all right, but it's certainly you know, yeah, yeah so. Uh.
Speaker 1: And what had happened is I think the Democrats became
Speaker 1: a party of the upper middle class on the West coast,
Speaker 1: on the East coast here in New York City. Uh,
Speaker 1: And they forgot and they forgot that while the economy
Speaker 1: under Obama actually did improve certainly from where he took
Speaker 1: over after the Wolf Street debacle, Um, the truth was
Speaker 1: and is that millions and millions of people are struggling
Speaker 1: today to put food on the table. That people have
Speaker 1: seen the jobs they work in, two jobs, they're working
Speaker 1: three jobs. They're worried to death about their kids, who were,
Speaker 1: in all likelihood will have for the first time in
Speaker 1: modern history, a lowest stand up living than their parents.
Speaker 1: They can't afford healthcare where they can't afford college, they
Speaker 1: can't afford childcare, they can't afford housing, that is the
Speaker 1: reality that the Democrats kind of forgot about, kind of
Speaker 1: forgot about. And Trump comes there, who's a phony from
Speaker 1: day one? And Trump comes there, he says, I'm hearing you.
Speaker 1: I understand that your job went to Mexico, your job
Speaker 1: went to China. I understand that Wall Street has enormous power.
Speaker 1: I understand that the drug companies are charging you very
Speaker 1: very high prices. And the champion of the powerless, I
Speaker 1: am the champion, I mean, one of the great you know,
Speaker 1: absurdities of all time. And of course he was lying
Speaker 1: through his teeth. And we've seen that in the first
Speaker 1: seven months of his presidency that virtually all of his
Speaker 1: policies have geared toward the billionaire class, and he's turned
Speaker 1: his back big time on working families, etcetera, etcetera. But
Speaker 1: he understood something that many Democrats did not, and that
Speaker 1: is that the global economy has worked very well for
Speaker 1: some people, but a whole lot of people have been
Speaker 1: displaced and hurt and ignored. No one even knew that
Speaker 1: they are alive. Turn onto damn television. No one is
Speaker 1: talking about that guy who's working two or three jobs,
Speaker 1: media and family income. The average mail worker today is
Speaker 1: earning less than real dollars than he did forty years.
Speaker 1: Do you think they're not talking about that in mainstream
Speaker 1: media or even cable. Well, that's a whole other story.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, media, what media you think treated
Speaker 1: you fairly? We did not do well with the corporate media,
Speaker 1: and I will say that in The New York Times
Speaker 1: was terrible, Washington Post was bad, Wall Street Journal, ABC
Speaker 1: almost that were in the last chapter of a book.
Speaker 1: Let me do an advertisement here. Okay, I wrote a book.
Speaker 1: You can do whatever you want. It's called Our Revolution.
Speaker 1: That's what the book is. Last chapter deals with media
Speaker 1: and the major critique. It's not me moaning and groaning.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not Downdra. All of the media has
Speaker 1: hates me and all that stuff. That's not the case.
Speaker 1: What media largely does, uh is ignore the most important
Speaker 1: issues facing this country. They're not. Increasingly. What they are
Speaker 1: into is what I would call political gossip. There are
Speaker 1: studies out there that will tell you that. On television,
Speaker 1: for example, an enormous amount of time talked about Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's personal life, Hillary Clinton and our emails, Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: and the Clinton all of that crap. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: anything to anybody in America? Well, what about that family
Speaker 1: where they can't afford to send their kids to college?
Speaker 1: How much time do you think you're spending on television?
Speaker 1: What about healthcare? Have you I'm asking you a question.
Speaker 1: You watch DV? Have you seen one program on the
Speaker 1: major networks talking about the healthcare system that exists in
Speaker 1: countries around the world compared to the United States, only Canada.
Speaker 1: They referenced Canada. But don't you think comprehensive. Don't you
Speaker 1: think it might be a good idea for the news
Speaker 1: media to get around Go to the UK, look at
Speaker 1: their system, Go to Denmark, look at their system, Go
Speaker 1: to Canada. You don't see that? What about income in
Speaker 1: wealth inequality? Do you see outrage in the media and say,
Speaker 1: what are we going to do about incoming wealth inequality?
Speaker 1: I was amazed that there was a study done on
Speaker 1: media coverage of the campaign, and it turns out that
Speaker 1: on the Sunday news shows it ended up that I
Speaker 1: ended up talking about poverty, using the word poverty more
Speaker 1: I think almost than everybody else combined, and I didn't
Speaker 1: use it a whole lot. How often do we talk
Speaker 1: about poverty? Forty three million people are living in poverty
Speaker 1: in this country. You hear a much of discussion, why
Speaker 1: is that? What are we gonna do about that? Only
Speaker 1: once the Bachelor goes off the air, you know, we
Speaker 1: have to watch the Bachelor. In fact, it's going all right.
Speaker 1: So the point is, you know, Medior is interested in
Speaker 1: a lot of personal stuff, a lot of political gossip
Speaker 1: in my view, and they are not talking about the
Speaker 1: real issues facing the emerkmen. So if you're out there
Speaker 1: and you're in Kansas or in your West Virginia and
Speaker 1: you're working two or three jobs and you're saying, who
Speaker 1: the hell cares about me? Who really worries that my kid?
Speaker 1: I'll have a guy. I will race this man who's
Speaker 1: a billionaire, maybe not to the tune that he claims
Speaker 1: he is, but I'll embrace this guy that's this vulgar,
Speaker 1: you know, uncurious, all these many un qualified in every sense,
Speaker 1: I mean, unfit to serve on a mentally, I believe.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to embrace this guy because at least
Speaker 1: he's pretending he wants to understand me. He's gonna pretend.
Speaker 1: Give me somebody who pretend over somebody who isn't even here,
Speaker 1: because I think you made a good point at least.
Speaker 1: This is when I'm gleaning from what you said. Maybe
Speaker 1: you didn't make this point, which is that Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: stood up there and she's the standard bear for a flabby, tired, unimaginative,
Speaker 1: out of touch Democratic Party. Well, I'll get in trouble
Speaker 1: if I say that, right A, right she Okay, she
Speaker 1: she gets shot down, or she runs out of gas
Speaker 1: or whatever you went metaphor you want to use. Because
Speaker 1: she represents this group that the people just don't have
Speaker 1: the same feelings about that they did thirty and forty
Speaker 1: years ago. This is not complicated stuff. You got a dress.
Speaker 1: The people who are hurting right now, incredible pain in
Speaker 1: this country, incredible pain. You know, this opioid epidemic and
Speaker 1: the herowin epidemic that we're experienced is cold by the
Speaker 1: doctors and scientists who studied a disease of despair. You
Speaker 1: know what that means, all right? It means you go
Speaker 1: to West Virginia. You go to communities that I have
Speaker 1: in West Virginia, unemployment, sky high wages, Pathetic people have
Speaker 1: given up on life, and they're turning to drugs, are
Speaker 1: turning to alcohol, are turning to suicide, soul sickness. Uh.
Speaker 1: Two last quick things. One is, uh, when you were
Speaker 1: in college, you went to you started out at Brooklyn
Speaker 1: College and definish of the University of Chicago. What'd you
Speaker 1: get a degree in political science and political science? Did
Speaker 1: you go to law school? No law school for you.
Speaker 1: And when you were there you I read this quote
Speaker 1: where you said that, uh, you told the l A
Speaker 1: Times in Chicago, you began to understand the futility of liberalism.
Speaker 1: Liberalism as opposed we've been talking about today. I happen
Speaker 1: to believe in the politics which is based on the
Speaker 1: needs and the energy of working people and not just
Speaker 1: a liberal elite. And um, I think the goal, and
Speaker 1: you know, just written a book which has this mission
Speaker 1: in mind, and we have some success already, is to
Speaker 1: involve more and more people in the political process. In
Speaker 1: the UK, as you know, they had an election a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago, seventy of the people voted. We
Speaker 1: had a presidential election, seven voted. Off election midterm elections
Speaker 1: thirties seven voted. That's terrible. Our job is to bring
Speaker 1: working people, young people into the political process. If we
Speaker 1: can raise the voter turnout in the presidential election from
Speaker 1: six the entire world changes, and it changes for Congress
Speaker 1: as well Europe for re election next year, and then
Speaker 1: beyond that, do you see uh even a possibility that
Speaker 1: you would want to seek not even the same officering?
Speaker 1: And would you ever consider for vice president if you
Speaker 1: believe you could be in a team with you can
Speaker 1: be on a ticket with somebody that was very likely
Speaker 1: to win. A taste for it? Now much too early?
Speaker 1: Do you think you've got the energy for it? I
Speaker 1: feel fine, Thank god, I'm not blessed with good health. Right.
Speaker 1: What did you think about Larry David's impersonation of you
Speaker 1: when I was with him on SNL. You did it
Speaker 1: better than me. That was probably the funniest line I
Speaker 1: heard in all the ESNL we did. I did the
Speaker 1: Trump thing and all the crazy stick that they've had
Speaker 1: me do, which has been not a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: I must say, having the Channel Trump. But my favorite
Speaker 1: was with you and Larry said, my opponent has four
Speaker 1: pairs of underwear. I have only two pairs of underwear.
Speaker 1: I washed them out in my sink in my hotel
Speaker 1: room and put them on the radio at night. You
Speaker 1: know pretty well, I know him very well. Yeah, he's brilliant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you have you enjoyed all that or do you
Speaker 1: think this kind of mockery because I'm very interested. It's
Speaker 1: not helping, No, it's uh no, I thought Larry did
Speaker 1: a great job. But are we were in terms of Trump?
Speaker 1: You think that we're kind of making him a little
Speaker 1: too cuddly and a little too funny, and we're taking
Speaker 1: people's mind off something with that. But we have to
Speaker 1: focus on on on Trump is what he is doing,
Speaker 1: you know, you know we every day he says something
Speaker 1: that it's absurd, But you know, think about this is
Speaker 1: a guy who told the American people he was going
Speaker 1: to provide good health care for quote unquote everybody. Remember
Speaker 1: that he supported throwing thirty two million people off health insurance. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know this is a guy who you know, made
Speaker 1: all kinds of promises to working people. Uh, and he
Speaker 1: has turned his back completely on that. It's the old
Speaker 1: line that happened during Buckley Valleo when someone said they
Speaker 1: said cash is speech, and an opponent of that decision said,
Speaker 1: will have cash his speech? The guy with the most
Speaker 1: cash speaks loudest, taking that idea that speech is money.
Speaker 1: What hapmes if you don't have any money? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's right. So I think what we you know, all
Speaker 1: of us believe in free speech. It's one of the
Speaker 1: important elements of our constitution. But I believe in democracy,
Speaker 1: and I believe in the right of all people that
Speaker 1: have the ability to influence the political process, not just
Speaker 1: a billionaires. Well, I really have not been much involved
Speaker 1: in the political process terms of fundraising these for the
Speaker 1: last eight years. I did full victim to that thing
Speaker 1: where when Obama won his second term, like I said, like,
Speaker 1: we're good, this is my guy in there for a
Speaker 1: second term, and you can really get some things done.
Speaker 1: But I must say, I hope you're proud of what
Speaker 1: you did. What you have accomplished is an amazing thing.
Speaker 1: You know, accomplished an amazing thing. I mean, if it
Speaker 1: was so close, you really had a shot, it was
Speaker 1: almost there. Well, what I am most proud of is
Speaker 1: that we have brought millions of people into the political process.
Speaker 1: When I said earlier, ideas that seemed far out and crazy,
Speaker 1: like medicare for all of making public colleges and universities
Speaker 1: tuition free, that kind of mainstream ideas now because people
Speaker 1: are talking about them, they're saying, why not Senator sanders
Speaker 1: new book, Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution is just out.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing