Bernie Sanders
Appearances
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And that's why, you know, when I ran for president, what I'm probably maybe most proud of is the fact that we received millions and millions of campaign contributions, averaging 27 bucks a piece, I think, in 2016.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
We don't welcome them into our office. I do deal with these guys, but it's usually on a confrontational tone, so they don't come into my office very often telling me their problems.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
This is not, you know, like many other issues, we don't have to reinvent the wheel here. It exists in other countries. If you go to, you know, every country has their own election system, but nobody has a system where billionaires can spend unlimited sums of money through super PACs to elect the candidates of their choice. So first thing you got to do.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You know, one of the things, Lex, I found that the more important the issue, the less discussion there is. The less important the issue, the more discussion there is. A number of years ago, the United States Supreme Court, in one of its more pathetic decisions, passed the Citizens United decision. And what Citizens United decision said is you're a multi-billionaire. You want the freedom.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You're a free person in a free country. You want the freedom to buy the government. And how terrible it would be to deny you the freedom to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a campaign to elect the candidates. And they said, that's your freedom. And that's what Citizens United is about. We've got to end that. And in my view, we move to public funding of elections.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
That means you want to run for governing, you want to run for Senate, show that you have some support. get $5 contributions from X number of people to show you you're not a flake. You have some support, and government will pay a certain amount more, and there will be a limit on the amount of money that can be spent.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So it'll be a real, you can run against me, and I'm not going to outspend you 10 to 1. That's what we should be moving toward in my view.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But you're right. You raised exactly the question. If I am getting a huge amount of money from billionaires, do you think I'm going to go out and announce, I think billionaires should not be involved in buying elections? I doubt that very much.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So what you're going to need, and you tell me if I'm missing something, but I pay attention, you don't hear either of the major candidates talking about that issue, do you?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
I mean, and every place I go, I always speak about the issue. And it always, people understand it. You're a Republican, you're a Democrat. You're progressive, you're conservative. Who really believes that we are a democracy when billionaires can spend tens and tens of millions of dollars to buy elections? So it is a very popular issue. It's important. You're right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
We need political leaders to be speaking out on that. But we need a grassroots movement to say, when somebody is at a town meeting, you're running for the Senate, you're running for the House, what's your view on Citizens United? Are you prepared to vote to overturn that decision and move to public funding of elections? Extraordinarily important.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Okay, let's talk about it. Fair enough. We talked about one issue, very important, money in politics. Money, yes. Getting money out of, big money out of politics. Do you think that's a radical idea?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
In that sense, it's radical. But if you go to walk down the street here and you say, do you think billionaires should be able to spend as much money as they want to buy politicians? I would say nine out of 10 people say that's crazy. That's not what America is supposed to be about. So in that sense, it's certainly not radical. Let's talk about health care.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Go out on the street, do it, or do a poll. I've done the polling. Is healthcare a human right? Should every American be able to go to a doctor when they need, regardless of their income? You know what people say? I would say about 85, 90% of the people say, of course. The idea that healthcare is a human right available to all exists, Lex, in every major country on earth except the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So you're here with me in Burlington, Vermont, right? If you got a car, go 50 miles north to Canada. Walk into Canada and ask people, when you go to the hospital, how much does it cost you? What's your kind of bill? And they say, what are you talking about? Doesn't cost us anything. Doesn't cost us a nickel. That's the case in virtually every country in Europe.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So the idea that health care should be available to all, that there should be no out-of-pocket expense because it's a human right, is widespread around the world and very much agreed to in this country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Bottom line is that because of our corrupt political system, we have a healthcare system designed not to provide healthcare to all people, to make huge profits for the drug companies and the insurance companies. And that is what's happening. And we've got to change that system. So I'm a strong advocate and I've led the effort on Medicare for All.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Well, we have a pretty good system, not great, but a pretty good system in Medicare. So it's there for the elderly, and Lyndon Johnson passed that in the 1960s, so huge step forward. It is being chopped away by the private insurance companies through Medicare Advantage. But if you strengthen Medicare,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And you do away with the kind of deductibles that seniors now have to pay, and you do away with other stuff. And you say, basically, right now, you're a senior in America. Go to any doctor you want. When you're in the hospital, Medicare will pay the entire bill. If you expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision, which it doesn't now cover, you do all of those things.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And then the next thing you do is say, okay, To be eligible for Medicare now, you have to be 65. First year, we're gonna lower it to 55, then we'll lower it to 45, then we'll lower it to 35, then we'll have everybody in the system. So I think in a four or five year period, you can strengthen Medicare and have everybody in the system.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And when you do that, and this is not just me talking, a number of studies have pointed this out, When you take the profit motive out of it from the insurance companies and the drug companies, you can end up providing quality care to all people and no more than we're spending right now. Because right now, we are spending twice as much per person in health care as the people of any other nation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Bernie Sanders wants to raise your taxes on healthcare. It's true, in a progressive way. But right now, do you have health insurance? Yes. Okay. Somebody's paying for your health insurance. It depends. If you are working, most people get their health insurance through their jobs, okay? So if you're working for a large company, your employer is paying your health insurance.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And by the way, that comes out of your wages. Healthcare costs in America are very high and your employee will tell you honestly, look, I can't give you more than a 3% wage increase because I got a 10% increase in your healthcare costs. You want that? Or if you're a union negotiating, you know what they'll say? Hey, you want decent wages? We're going to have to cut back on your healthcare.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
That's what every union has to deal with, you know, every negotiating session. So we're paying for it through employers out of pocket. We pay through it through Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration, etc., What I am proposing is really not radical. It's what exists in Canada and other countries. It is publicly funded, like the police departments and like libraries are, like public education.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
This is publicly funded in a progressive way. So right now, rather than paying out of your own pocket, if you are a family, let's just say you're self-employed right now, and you have a couple of kids and a wife, it could cost you $15,000, $20,000 a year in insurance costs. Well, that's all eliminated. Will you have to pay more in taxes? Of course you will.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Maybe it depends on your income level, but it could be that you'd be paying $12,000 more in taxes, but not $20,000 more in premiums, copayments, and deductibles. You save money. So it's paying taxes rather than paying money to the insurance company. You got a better deal through the tax system.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Look, and I think you said it very well. I'm chairman of the committee that deals with this stuff, so I talk to a lot of doctors. And doctors in Vermont and all over this country tell me that they are astounded people walk into their offices much sicker than they should have been. And the doctor said, why didn't you come in here six months ago when you first, you know, felt your symptoms?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And they said, well, you know, I have a high deductible of a $10,000 deductible. I don't have any money to pay. I'm uninsured. Some of those people don't make it. Other people, and this is what is totally crazy, they end up in the hospital at a huge expense to the system rather than getting the care they need when they needed it. So that is how, I'll give you another example of it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
We pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. One out of four Americans can't afford the drugs their doctors prescribe. So you walk into the doctor's office, and they say, okay, Lex, you got this, that, and the other thing. Here's your prescription. You can't afford to fill it. What happens? You get sicker.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You end up in the emergency room, which is an extremely expensive proposition. Or you end up in the hospital. Rather than dealing with the problem when it occurs, And what is not talked about, you know, I mentioned earlier how we don't talk about some of the major issues.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
The estimate is that some 60,000 people in America die every single year unnecessarily because they can't get to a doctor when they need because of financial reasons. And you want to hear even crazier, one out of four people who get cancer treatment in this country either go bankrupt or deplete their financial resources or their family. So your point is right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You know, if somebody diagnoses you with cancer, you're scared to death, you're worried about how you're going to live, you're going to die, what's going to happen. And then on top of that, you've got to worry about whether your family goes bankrupt. How insane and cruel is that? So to me, you know, I think healthcare is what unites us all. Everybody has family. They get sick. We all get born.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
We all die. We all want care. And we all have got to come together to create a system that works for all of us, not just the drug companies or the insurance companies.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And you know what? People know that. And you know what they say? I don't feel well today. Something's wrong. I ain't going to go to that emergency room because I don't want a $6,000 bill. And what happens? He had insurance that paid two-thirds of it, right? Yes. So what happens if he didn't? What happens if he didn't have money? He'd be hounded by bill collectors for the rest of his life.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So it is a disgusting system. It is an inhumane system. But the insurance companies and the drug companies are very powerful, and they make a lot of campaign contributions, have a lot of lobbyists, and we are where we are. But I think the American people want fundamental changes there.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
That's a wonder. And I'll tell you that not only that, not only is it not implemented because of money, it's not even discussed. All right. So I'm saying here, and no one disputes me, we are spending twice as much per person on healthcare, right? and yet 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, and our life expectancy is lower than virtually every other major country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Do you think that might be an issue that we'd be discussing?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But, you know, when you take on, in this case, the Democratic establishment, who have controlled that party forever, might need interest in the Democratic Party.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
When you're taking on corporate America, when you're taking on the corporate media, and when you're calling for a political revolution that creates the government that works for all and not just the few, the opposition is going to be extraordinary.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But what I am extremely proud of from that campaign, and 2020 as well, is that we took on the anointed candidate of the establishment, and we showed, despite the fact the entire establishment, I had in the Senate, I had one supporter. There were 50 Democrats, I had one supporter. I had no governors supporting me, I think. Maybe a few people in the House.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But we took on the whole political establishment and we did, you know, got millions of votes. And the ideas that we brought forth were ideas that they had to eventually deal with in one way or another. And if you look at the American Rescue Plan, which I'm proud to have helped write during the midst of COVID, a lot of the ideas that we fought for were implemented in that bill.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
I think we would have. I think we would have. You know, I think Trump is a very, you know, I think he's a little bit crazy between you and me, but he is a smart politician. And he's appealing to a lot of the anger that working class people feel. And you know what?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Working class people should feel angry, but they should make sure that their anger is directed in the right direction and not against people who are even worse off than they are, which is what demagogues like Trump always do. So, you know, I think we had, as I went around the country then and now, we have a lot of support from working class people who understand that there is something wrong.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And this is an incredible fact that no one talks about. All right, I'm going to ask you a question. Are you ready for this, Lex? Let's go. Here we go. Over the last 50 years, there's been a massive increase in worker productivity as a result of technology, right? Everyone agrees with that. And I don't know exactly what it is.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But the worker today is producing a lot more than the worker 50 years ago doing something similar. Is the worker today in real inflation accounted for dollars making more money than that worker 50 years ago?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
That is the point. So you would think... That if a worker is producing a lot more, that worker would be better off, would be working lesser hours, etc. That hasn't been the case. And what has happened in that 50 years is, according to the Rand Corporation, there has been a 50 trillion, trillion with a T, redistribution of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So you got CEOs today making 300 times more than their workers. You got three people on top owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society. So that's why people are angry. And they're worried that their kids may have a lower standard of living than they in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. So there's a lot of anger out there.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And I think we tap some of that anger in a constructive way, essentially saying, you know what? We don't need so few to have so much in wealth and power. Let's distribute it more fairly in America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Well, by the way, in terms of a takeover of the Democratic Party, we did try. Do you know who Keith Ellison is? Keith is now the Attorney General of the state of Minnesota. He's doing a great job, really, one of the outstanding attorney generals in the country. And Keith was then a member of Congress. And we ran Keith to become the head of the DNC and the establishment of
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
from the president of the United States on down went crazy. And they beat him by a few votes, not a whole lot. So it's, look, you face, and you know, that's the exact same position that many of us are in right today. So people say, well, why did you support Hillary Clinton? Yeah, what's the alternative, Donald Trump?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
I think Donald Trump is an extremely dangerous person trying to undermine American democracy. So I can't support him. Hillary Clinton, obviously, his views are very, very different than mine. But in that moment, that's where politics becomes really tricky. And it ain't easy. And sometimes you have to do things that you're not really all that excited about.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But I think it was right to try to do what I could to prevent Trump from getting elected.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And again, that's why politics is very, very fascinating. Sometimes you can run and lose and you really win if your goal is not just individual power, but transforming society. One of my heroes, you mentioned Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who is one of my heroes. Another one of my heroes is Eugene Victor Debs. Did that ring a bell? Yeah, yes. Okay. For many reasons, yes. All right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Debs, many listeners may not know who Debs was. Debs was a union organizer in the early 1900s, helped form the American Railway Union, ran for president, I think, five times, ran the last time while he was in a jail cell because of his opposition to World War I and got a million votes doing that. Debs lost badly in every race that he ran in.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for president, and much of what Roosevelt ended up doing was at least some of what Debs had talked about. Debs helped lay the groundwork for ideas. So sometimes you can lose and win if you're into transforming society. What my view is, where I disagree with Obama— is I think you have got to raise consciousness among ordinary people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And when people know what's going on and are prepared in an organized way to fight for change, they can make incredible changes. And we've seen that in recent years. You know, today we take for granted, well, we have a woman running for president of the United States, so I'm supporting. We have had other women running for president. We have women governors and senators.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Not so many years ago in the United States Senate, there were 98 men, two women, all right? Even before that, 1920, it was when women got the right to vote. How did that change? How did women's role in society change? It changed because women and their male allies stood up and fought. Gay rights. I'm old enough to remember that anybody I knew who was gay, you think they would talk about it?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
come out about it? No, they wouldn't. That's changed. We have seen, you know, in terms of civil rights, massive changes. Change happens when people at the grassroots level demand that. We talked about healthcare a moment ago. We will get universal Medicare for all when millions of people make it clear that's what they want.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So I believe politics starts at the grassroots level, and that's how you got to bring about change.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Well, You know, I know him, we're not best friends, but I know him well and we chat every once in a while. First of all, don't underestimate what it was in 2008 to be the first black president in the history of this country. And I think few would deny that he's an extraordinarily intelligent guy, very, very articulate, one of the best speakers that there is in America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And that he and his family, and again, it's a lot harder than it looks. He and his family for eight years, that's his wife, Michelle, and his kids, really
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
held that office in in a way that earned i think the respect of the american people even when people disagree with him politically um so he deserves it and again don't ever don't underestimate i think you know years ago there were people who said a black president in our lifetimes never going to happen can't happen too racist the country he did it And that is a huge accomplishment.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And I think he has had some significant achievements in his presidential tenure. He and I did disagree on a number of issues. I think he will tell you, I think his public stance is that Yeah, if you had to start all over again, he would do Medicare for all, single payer. But where we are right now, the best he could do is the Affordable Care Act. Well, we disagree on that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And we disagree on other things. But, you know, I think he deserves an enormous amount of credit for what he has accomplished.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
It is very hard. People do not fully appreciate how powerful the establishment is, whether it is the healthcare industry, whether it's the military industrial complex, whether it's the fossil fuel industry. These people have unlimited amounts of money. They are very smart lobbyists in Washington, D.C., and they are very, very greedy people. They want it all.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You know, some of my European friends, they say, you know, Bernie, in the United States, you're considered to be very radical. If you were here in, you know, France or Denmark or someplace, you'd be kind of mainstream left guy. Not all that radical. So this is what I think. I mean, I think the best that we could do right now, where we are right now, is to create a society which does two things.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
It encourages innovation. But at the same time, it makes sure that all people in a wealthy nation have a decent standard of living. In some countries, if you look at Scandinavia, and this shocks people because we don't talk about this at all. So in Scandinavia, it has been the case, you know, Denmark, Finland, Norway, for years that people have health care. That's not a big deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You end up in a hospital, so what? They don't pay a bill. You have, and this shocks people, in America right now, we have people who get one week, two weeks off paid vacation. Sometimes we get nothing, you know that? There are people out there who have no vacation at all. You know, in Germany, you get six weeks paid vacation and other holidays as well. People are shocked by that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
In America, we don't have paid family and medical leave. The only major country not to do it. Other countries, your wife gets sick, you stay home with her. Your kids get sick, not a big deal. You get a certain amount of paid family and medical leave. Cost of prescription drugs are far more affordable. So what you want to do is create what's called a social safety net.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
That means I don't care what your income is. Of course, you're going to have health care as a human right. Of course, you're going to have housing that is affordable. Of course, your kids are going to have great quality education from child care to university without much cost. You know, every country has a little bit different.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But there are countries in the world right now, I think in Germany, I think college is now tuition free, as I recall. for obvious reasons. They want to have the best educated workforce they can. So in terms of government playing a role in a civilized democratic society of providing all basic needs, healthcare, education, housing, retirement benefits, yes, that is what we've got to do. Now,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Does that mean then that the government is going to run every mom and pop store in the corner? Of course not. You want innovation? You want, you know, you want to go out and start a business, produce a product? Good luck to you. Make money. But on the other hand, in terms of even making money, we want you to be able to do that, come up with good products, good services.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But do I think you should end up with $100 billion? No, I don't. And you know what's funny? I had, I did an interview with Bill Gates, who is, I think, the third wealthiest guy in the country. struggling behind Musk and Bezos, I think. And he's only worth 100 plus billion, but he gets by. And I said to him, Bill, he was supposed to ask me questions. I asked him the question.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
I said, Bill, tell me something. You're an innovator with Microsoft and all that stuff. Did you know that you'd become a multi-billionaire? And was that motivated you? That one motivated you? And he said, no. And I believe he was honest. He said, I love doing whatever. I love programming. And I was a kid. He started doing that. He loved it. He was motivated by it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Do you think that there are scientists out there who are working day and night trying to develop drugs to deal with Alzheimer's or cancer that they motivate, oh, boy, if I come up with this drug, I'm going to become a billionaire? So I think, you know, we want to reward success. Fine. But you don't need a billion dollars.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
We want people to get satisfaction from what they accomplish, the work they're doing, whether it's cleaning the street or developing a new, you know, drug. So I think we have gone a little bit too far. And you're right in talking about the book was an attack on, I call it, you call it hypercapitalism or ubercapitalism. But right now, and this is not an American issue, this is a global issue.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
It's not an accident that Musk is over there in Saudi Arabia talking to the trillionaire families in the Mideast. These guys are with Putin and his friends. You've got probably not more than 5,000, 10,000 extraordinarily wealthy families who have unbelievable economic power, over 7 billion people on this planet.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
That's right. That is the story. Look. I am no great fan of Elon Musk, especially in the role that he's playing right now in Trump's campaign. But is he a brilliant guy? Of course he is. Does he work like a dog? Of course he does. Does he come up with these incredible innovations and companies? Yes, he does. Does he deserve credit for that? Yeah, he does.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But, you know, even in terms of encouraging innovation, I would hope... that we are focusing on the important issues. I would love to see great innovators figure out how we build the affordable housing that we need, come up with the great drugs that we need to solve many of the terrible illnesses that plague people, climate change, for God's sakes. Do we need innovation?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
We're making some progress in this country. Should we do more? What kind of technologies out there can really cut back on carbon emissions? So I hope we focus on some of the most important issues that impact humanity. But reward innovators, I don't have a problem with that, but I do have a problem when three people end up owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Look, nothing new. Trump didn't invent it. It's called a photo opportunity. I've done one or two in my life, too. So you go to a place, he puts on an apron. He, good old Donald Trump, just another McDonald's worker. But anyhow, he was civilized. He did his photo op. That's fine. Kamala Harris was in North Carolina handing out food to people who were victims of the hurricane. Fine.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
That's what politicians do. But some reporter asked them, they said, you know, Mr. Trump, are you for raising the minimum wage? And that was a fair question because you got, I don't know how many, but many, many thousands of McDonald's workers and millions of other American workers right now are trying to get by on nine, 10, 11 bucks an hour. Federal minimum wage is seven and a quarter.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You have people working in McDonald's right now for sure. who are working with 12, 13 bucks an hour. So the reporter said, you know, what do you think about raising the federal minimum wage? And he's, oh, these are great workers. I love McDonald's, so forth. He didn't answer the question.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Well, I think that in the richest country in the history of the world, if you work 40 hours a week, you should not be living in poverty. And that means we should have a federal minimum wage, not absurdly seven and a quarter an hour, but in my view, $17 an hour. Will that solve all the economic problems for working class people? No, it won't. It'll help. It'll help.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Do I own three residences? Yeah, I do. I live here in Burlington, Vermont. We live in a middle-class neighborhood. Nice house. Uh, Guess what? I'm a United States senator, and I own a home in Washington, D.C., as do most senators. You know, you live there year after year. Actually, when I was in Congress for 16 years, I rented all the time. But I got elected. Okay, got a six-year term.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You know what? Let's buy a house. So we bought a house, and guess what? Like many thousands of people in the state of Vermont, I have a summer camp. It's a nice one on Lake Champlain. That's it. Now, how did I get the money? You're right. I wrote two bestselling books, including this book on capitalism. It was New York Times bestseller for a while. And also another book was a youth book.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And I make, I don't know, $175,000 a year. And that's more or less how I became the zillionaire that I am. Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
They're normal houses in Brooklyn. They're not, you know, they're middle-class houses, very nice house.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
That's a good question. Obviously, growing up in a working-class family has been maybe the most singularly significant aspect of my politics. I grew up without money in a family that lived in a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn, New York. That has impacted me. I'll tell you, I don't really give a damn about money. I drive a car that's 11 years old. It's an old And money, here's my jewelry.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
It's a solar watch. Nice. And my wedding ring. That's about it. I don't have a Rolex watch. Would not be interested in it. But I'll tell you what has impacted me. My wife, who also grew up in a working class family, will tell you the same. We don't worry. You raised that issue. If we have to go to the doctor, if our kids have to go to the doctor, we go to the doctor.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
I don't stay up nights worrying. I used to, there was a time I have to worry about how to pay my electric bill. I don't worry about that anymore. So what has happened, that stress, that economic stress of not worrying about a financial disaster, that's gone. And that is enormous.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
I, you know, maybe as much or more than any other member of the Senate, work hard not only for but with working class people. I'm chairman of the Committee of Deals with Labor Issues. We have been involved probably in dozens of strikes all over this country. I've been on picket lines. So, you know, I do my best. It's a very easy trap to fall into.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You can get separated from ordinary people and their struggles. Not hard to do. I try as hard as I can not to do that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Lexi, I think you said it very well. I remember, even to, and I saw this change in myself. When I used to go out and I'd do the grocery shop. My wife does a lot of the cooking. I do the grocery shop. I used to look at the prices of everything. I do that less now. You know, I say, what the hell? So what? It costs 50 cents more for this can of stuff. So what? But that's a luxury you have.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
when you don't have to worry about that. And I don't have to worry about that. But your point is, again, to me, I don't like big fancy cars or big fancy homes. Don't go on. My wife will tell you we've not been on a real vacation for God knows how long, because I work pretty hard. But the major thing about having money, which is enormously important, is just what you said. I don't have to worry.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
If somebody in my family gets sick, I don't have to worry about that. I don't have to worry about putting food on the table or paying the mortgage. So that's what money has done.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
That is the most important question regarding, to my mind, American politics. One of the successes that we've had, and I'm proud to have played a role in this, is that if you go to the House of Representatives right now, you will see almost 100 members of the Progressive Caucus, led very well by a woman from Washington, Pramila Jayapal, does a great job.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You know, it's people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and many others. Many of them are young, often women, people of color, and many of them come from working class backgrounds. So what we have been able to do in recent years, elect a number of strong progressives who represent working families very, very effectively.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
The struggle in the Democratic Party is between the corporate wing and the progressive wing. And the corporate wing takes a whole lot of money, sees its salvation in getting a whole lot of money from wealthy individuals and large corporations, and is not very vigorous, in my view, in representing the needs of working class people. If they were, we would have healthcare for all.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
We would have a minimum wage that was a living wage. we would not have a housing crisis. We would not have a tax system in which billionaires pay an effective tax rate that is lower than a truck driver or a nurse. So I think one of the reasons that Trump has had political success is he is not so much as ideas.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Most working class people don't think we should give tax breaks to billionaires or worry about the size of, you know, Arnold Palmer's genitalia. But they are angry. People are angry. And the Democrats have not responded effectively to that anger.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So the struggle that we are waging right now is the future of the Democratic Party will be a party of the working class and represent working class issues, whether you're black or white or Latino or Asian or whatever you may be. Or will it be a corporately dominated party? That's the struggle we're in right now.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
I gave about five minutes thought to it. And the reason was, we have a slogan in the progressive movement, it's not about me, it's about us. And, you know, to have taken on Biden, who, in my view, on domestic issues, has been quite strong.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
would have really split the democratic party and laid the groundwork for an easy trump victory and that i did not want to see so sometimes in life and i know that a lot of you know younger people don't don't agree with me but you know you got to make choices which are painful uh so i strongly supported biden because i liked i liked his domestic record he's done some good things against a lot of opposition
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And I'm supporting Kamala right now. But I'm doing my best to see that a dangerous guy like Donald Trump does not become president.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
I really like Alexandria a whole lot. She is a young woman who comes from a working class background. She helped her mother clean houses. She was a bartender in the Bronx, New York. And I'm very proud that my campaign for president inspired her to run. And she ran on a progressive working class program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And she took on one of the more powerful guys, a guy named Joe Crowley, who was pretty high up in the Democratic Party. And she knocked on doors. She had no money. She did a very strong grassroots effort. And I appreciate that. So that's number one. I like what she stands for. She's incredibly smart. And she has that certain charisma that, you know, maybe you're born with it, maybe you develop it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
I don't know. She, a couple of years ago, she was, she came up here to Vermont. This was a time she and her, her, her partner Riley came up and, um, And we were out in the street, and people saw her, and they said, oh, Congresswoman. And she just smiled, and she had an approach to people which was beautiful. I mean, it wasn't phony. It was real.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But to be a politician, you've got to know how to, you know, you can be a great intellectual, but you can't relate to people. She relates well to people. And...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So I think both from a personality perspective, from an intellect perspective, from an ideological perspective, she helped create the Green New Deal concept, the need to create jobs as we transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, strong advocate for Medicare for all workers' rights. So I'm a big fan of Alexandria.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Well, you know, I don't know that I can give you a singular answer. You know, I was mayor of this city and proud of what we accomplished here. Proud of my accomplishments as a U.S. senator. You know, when COVID was devastating this country and we had a massive economic downturn, as chairman of the Budget Committee, I helped write
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
The American Rescue Plan, which put a lot of money into people's pockets. We cut childhood poverty by 40% by providing a child tax credit. We kept hospitals going. We kept colleges going. Kept people from getting evicted. Helped get public health out there, people getting the vaccines. You know, I'm proud of that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But at the end of the day, I think what I have shown is that the ideas—this gets back to the early part of this conversation— The ideas that I am talking about are ideas that are widely supported. Donald Trump says, Bernie Sanders is a far left. It's like I'm some kind of extremist coming up with ideas that nobody supports.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Everything that I talk about, raising the minimum wage, healthcare for all, a tax system which demands the billionaires pay their fair share, those are all popular ideas, but people didn't know. You've got to run for president and have 20,000 people come out to your rallies and win 23 states. Well, maybe those ideas are not so crazy after all, and we've got to entertain them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
The establishment doesn't like that. They really don't. They want to tell you, and this is their main, this is how they succeed. What they say, Lex, is the world is the way it is. It always will be this way. We got the wealth. We got the power. And don't think of anything else. This is the way it is. You have no power. Give up.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
They don't say it quite that way, but that's really what the intent is. And what we showed is, guess what? running an outsider campaign. We took on the democratic establishment. We came close to winning it. And we did win 23 states. And the ideas that we're talking about are the ideas that working class people, young people believe in.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And out of that came dozens of candidates now in the House of Representatives, people on city council, people on state legislature who did win.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Well, when you're 83, it does come across. All right. Yeah, of course I do. Are you afraid of it? No, I'm not afraid of death. What I am afraid of, I think, is infirmity. I have been, knock on wood, this is wood, I think, reasonably healthy with an exception. I had a heart attack five years ago. And what blew me away was that my body failed me for the very first time in my life.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
That was stunning to me that, you know, suddenly I was in a hospital bed. Uh, you know, I have a great deal of compassion for people as we speak who are in nursing homes, having a hard time walking. Maybe your mental agility is slipping a little bit. That's tough. That's, that's what worries me. You know, we are all going to die and, you know, that's that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So I'm not afraid of that, but that aspect of getting older and, you know, that does concern me.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And there will be, Lex. I absolutely do. And I think, you know, you asked about my legacy and the idea that they're all wonderful, really, really wonderful people. who are now got involved in the political process that are fighting for justice. That's a great legacy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You know, sometimes one can become very cynical. You look at the terrible wars that are going on right now. You look at the divisiveness in this country, the ugliness, the poverty. You look at climate change. You know, you can get depressed from all of that. But I am lucky in this sense. and that I've had the opportunity. People often ask, what inspires you? How do you keep going?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And I remember, it actually was in California where it really crystallized for me. I was at a rally in the agricultural area of California. And we did a rally. It was sunset. Thousands of people were out. And you looked around the crowd. And there were young people, black and white and Latino and Asian American. Huge cross-section. They're older people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And they all wanted to make America a very much better country. And it really moved me. I mean, I see that time and time again. I've just been on the campaign trail. And you see great people, really beautiful people, who are not interested in becoming billionaires. They want to improve life for other people in this country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
So, you know, I am grateful that I, you know, it sounds like a platitude, you know, that's what every politician says, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah. But when you go out around the country, You know, you go to Native American reservations and you go to factories and everything, and you see so many wonderful people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You know, I have been able to see things that many others have not, but every state in the country. And that inspires me.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Well, thank you very much for what you're doing. Let me just say a word about what you're doing. Okay, let's go. The compliments here. Okay. You know, I think there is a growing dissatisfaction with corporate media. And not because it's fake news or the reporters lie all the time. That's nonsense. They don't.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But I think people want to hear folks really talk about in a calm manner about some of the very important issues which are not discussed in corporate media. And I think that's what you and some others are doing. So I thank you very much. It's a very important service to the country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Yeah, I do. I mean, you know, everybody talks about themselves. It's not about me. You know, nice guy, not a nice guy. What politics should be about is the issues facing the people of our country, the people of the world, and how we're going to address it. That's what it should be.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
It's extraordinary. Took a bus ride down with fellow students in the University of Chicago. And it was a zillion people there. I'm not sure if it was the first time I'd ever been in Washington in my life. But it was, you know, it was a very impressive moment. And what he was talking about, what people very often forget about that, it was not only racial justice, it was jobs.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
Jobs and justice, that was the name of that rally. And so it's something I've never forgotten.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
King was a very impressive guy. more impressive, I think, than people think that he was. And what he did is he created his movement from the bottom on up. So he developed real organization, grassroots organization, which put pressure on communities and officials to end segregation, to open up voting patterns.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And I think what has to also be remembered about King, which is really quite extraordinary,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
is you know he won the nobel peace prize and there was oh you're great you're wonderful but then to the end of his life he took on lyndon johnson on the war in vietnam and as soon as he did that suddenly the editorial pages throughout america established from papers uh no longer thought he was so great in fact the message sent out you're black deal with civil rights don't worry about foreign policy we'll take care of that
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But he said, you know, if I talk about peace and nonviolence, I can't sit back and allow what's going on in Vietnam to continue without speaking out. Incredible courage to do that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And, by the way, when he was assassinated at a fighting for the rights of AFSCME workers, garbage, guys that delivered the garbage, who were treated terribly, low wages, bad working conditions, they went out to support their right to form a union. That's when he got killed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And maybe, ironically, it came out of maybe the war in Vietnam and the ease and lies that people told. We went into Vietnam under a lie. We lost close to 60,000 Americans, millions of people in Vietnam. Cambodia died as a result of that. So you think twice about it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
And then the war in Iraq, you had, you know, people like Dick Cheney and others telling us, oh, they have nuclear weapons and all that stuff. It's the only way we can resolve the issue. I didn't believe it. I didn't agree with it. And then you're right. It turns out historically I was right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
It's huge. I mean, it gets to the broader issue of where we are as a nation. And what I almost uniquely in Congress talk about is the fact that we are moving, Lex, to an oligarchic form of society. And not a lot of people are familiar with that term. But what it means, you know, we talk about oligarchy in Russia. Oh, Putin is surrounded by the oligarchs. Well, guess what?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
What do you think is happening in the United States? So what you have right now is an economy with more concentration of ownership than we've ever had. That means whether it's agriculture, transportation, healthcare, whatever it may be, fewer and fewer massively large corporations control what's produced and the prices we pay. And then you look at our political system, and we don't talk about it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
What is the reality of the political system today? And that is that billionaires are spending huge amounts of money to buy this election. In Trump's campaign, you got three multi-billionaires spending over $200 million. Three people. Democrats have their billionaires not quite as concentrated.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
But at the end of the day, billionaires play an enormous role in terms of electing politicians and in Washington in determining what legislation gets seen and not seen.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
You got it. Let me give you one example. Lobbyists. We pay in the United States by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. This is an issue I've been working hard on with some success. Take a wild and crazy guess. How many lobbyists are there from the drug companies in Washington, D.C.? Over a thousand. Over a thousand, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
There are 100 members of the Senate, 435 members of the House, 535 members of Congress. There are 1,800 lobbyists.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
well-paid lobbyists representing the drug companies including former leaders of the republican and democratic party that is why one of the reasons why we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs military industrial complex you've got a revolving door people go from the military into the general dynamics into lockheed martin and the other large companies and what we see there is an institution in the pentagon
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
We spend a trillion dollars a year on the Pentagon. It is the only federal agency that is not able to submit to an independent audit. So if you think there's not massive fraud and waste and cost overruns in the Pentagon, you would be sorely mistaken.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
If the corrupt means that, hey, here's $10,000, vote this way, doesn't work like that. Very, very rare. Occasionally, very, very rare. That's corruption. What happens is that if you are in a campaign, and right now the amount of money that people have to raise, you're running for Senate in Ohio, you're talking about $50, $60 million. Where the hell are you going to get that money?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
It's not going to be $10 donations. You're going to be surrounding yourself with people who have the money. You're going to go $5,000, a plate dinner, et cetera. So you surround yourself with those people who say, oh, these are my problems. This is what I need. I need a tax break for billionaires, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you become, you live in that world. They are your financial support.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#450 – Bernie Sanders Interview
They are, in a sense, your political base. So you're very cognizant of what you do in terms of not upsetting them. So it's not corruption in the sense of people taking envelopes with huge amounts of money to vote a certain way. That very, very rarely, if ever, happens. It is the power of big money to make politicians dependent on those folks.