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Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders21 posts
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26 May, 2015

Speakeasy with John Harwood interview

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Sanders appears on CNBC’s Speakeasy with John Harwood. Harwood interviews Sanders over a meal at a Capitol Hill bistro. On the U.S. economy:

The issue we’re dealing with is actually the struggle to rebuild American democracy. Economically, over the last 40 years, we’ve seen a middle class in this country disappearing…Ninety-nine percent of all new income generated today goes to the top 1 percent. The top one-tenth of 1 percent owns as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Does anybody think this is the kind of economy we should have. Do we think it’s moral?

On the subject of the Clintons earning $30 million making speeches in the last six months he says that he doesn’t condemn them but that it can affect a politician’s perspective:

When you hustle money like that, you don’t sit in restaurants like this. You sit in restaurants where you’re spending—I don’t know what they spend—hundreds of dollars for dinner and so forth. That’s the world that you’re accustomed to, and that’s the world view that you adopt. You’re not worrying about a kid three blocks away from here whose mom can’t afford to feed him…So yes, I think that can isolate you—that type of wealth has the potential to isolate you from the reality of the world.

24 May, 2015

Criticizes campaign coverage

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In an appearance on CNN’s Reliable Sources Sanders says:

In terms of campaign coverage, there is more coverage about the political gossip of the campaign, about raising money, about polling, about somebody saying something dumb, or some kid works for a campaign and sends out something stupid on Facebook, right? We can expect that to be a major story. But what your job is, what the media’s job is, is to say, ‘Look, these are the major issues facing the country.’ We’re a democracy. People have different points of view. Let’s argue it…I think that instead of coming up with the next news of the moment, ‘Breaking news! There was an automobile accident and a cat got run over,’ here’s breaking news: For 40 years the American middle lass has been disappearing and the rich have been getting richer. Why?

Bernie Sanders slams press for campaign coverage on CNN's Reliable Sources

19 May, 2015

Reddit AMA

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Sanders answers questions on Reddit.

My first effort would be to rally the American people to demand that Congress pass a progressive agenda which reverses the decline of our middle class. We have got to create millions of decent-paying jobs rebuilding our infrastructure, we’ve got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, we’ve got to overturn this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and we have to transform our energy system in order to protect us from climate change. If the American people are politically active and demand that Congress act on their behalf, we can accomplish those goals and much more.

5 May, 2014

Tavis Smiley interview

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Senator Sanders discusses the minimum wage debate, poverty in the United States, and presidential politics in this interview for PBS.

Well first of all, let’s be very clear. You have many, many Republicans, and I don’t think most Americans know this, but you have many Republicans from the Koch brothers on down who not only do not want to raise the minimum wage, their view is that we should abolish the concept of the minimum wage. That means if you’re in a high unemployment area and an employer offers you three bucks an hour, then that’s what the wage will be. But the bottom line for the Republicans in general, it’s the same old story.