Black and Brown Forum debate
Sanders and Clinton debate policy issues during the Iowa Black and Brown Forum, hosted by Drake University. At specific issue were gun control, Wall Street reform, tax policy and immigration issues. Clinton’s campaign released a statement during the forum, related to questions asked during the event:
Our immigration enforcement efforts should be humane and conducted in accordance with due process, and that is why I believe we must stop the raids happening in immigrant communities.
Defends Clinton on emails
At the first Democratic debate, Sanders defends Clinton over her email controversy.
Clinton: I’ve taken responsibility for it. I did say it was a mistake. I have been as transparent as I know to be, turning over 55,000 pages of my e-mails, asking that they be made public. [I’d rather spend my time talking about] the issues that matter to the American people
Sanders: Let me say — let me say something that may not be great politics. But I think the secretary is right, and that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.
Clinton: Thank you. Me, too. Me, too.
The two then exchange a friendly handshake.
Speakeasy with John Harwood interview
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.
Commemorates Memorial Day
Sanders marches in one of Vermont’s annual Memorial Day parades and tweets a photo of himself and a quote of his own for Memorial Day.
If you are not prepared to take care of the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend this country – who came back wounded in body, wounded in spirit – if you’re not prepared to help those people, then don’t send them to war in the first place.
…wounded in body, wounded in spirit… pic.twitter.com/tjfL3Elqhp
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 25, 2015
Criticizes campaign coverage
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?
Announces campaign launch
Sanders’ staffers announce his presidential campaign launch less than a week before the Tuesday rally at Waterfront Park in Burlington, VT. Sanders will stand on public land he fought for in the 1980s as he announces his presidential ambitions — while spectators will be provided Ben & Jerry’s ice cream at the free, non-ticketed event.
Burlington-based band Mango Jam will play in the park. Cohen and Greenfield, from Ben & Jerry’s and environmentalist and author McKibben are expected to speak.
Speakers announced
A Sanders spokesman says that McKibben will speak at Sanders’ presidential campaign kickoff. In an email McKibben writes:
Bernie is the ultimate what-you-see-is-what-you-get politician. There’s no fancy moves and no adroit spin, just relentless day-in day-out advocacy for working people, and for a working planet. Bernie’s been in the forefront of all the crucial environmental fights of recent years, always willing to knuckle down and do the hard work of fighting the big corporations.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., are also expected to speak — with free ice cream in tow.
Recommends breaking up big banks
Sanders wants to require the Financial Stability Oversight Council to make up a list of banks considered ‘too big to fail’ due to the devastating potential consequences, and then break up those banks.
If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.
Reddit AMA
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.
‘I like Hillary Clinton’
Sanders denies that he would be a “spoiler” for the electoral chances of the establishment favorite:
Maybe I shouldn’t say this: I like Hillary Clinton.
Sanders asks if the media would “allow us to have a serious debate?”
Or is the only way you get media attention by ripping apart somebody else?
Tavis Smiley interview
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.