CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders

Interview

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COOPER: Tonight, we'll explore the implications of that, the cost of taking up the unfinished business as well as the price to be paid for not trying.

With that, let's welcome 2016 and now 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders.

Senator Sanders, thank you for being with us.

I want to talk about your speech and this idea of a 21st century economic Bill of Rights which is what you were focusing on today.

Very quickly, though, just your reaction to what the president told George Stephanopoulos that he would take a look at opposition research or anything offered from a foreign government and even an adversary and then maybe call the FBI.

SANDERS: Well, Anderson, to tell you the truth, I am not exactly shocked. But I think we have a president who neither understands the Constitution of the United States or respects the Constitution, somebody that does not believe in the separation of powers and somebody who thinks he's above the law.

I mean, that is why I believe the House should begin impeachment inquiries on Trump. So, no, I'm not shocked.

COOPER: What changed your mind on beginning impeachment inquiries? Because it is -- it is something of an evolution for you.

[20:25:03] SANDERS: No, not really. I'm not here to tell you that we should impeach Trump. In fact, I don't even know that there are the votes in the House to impeach him and I doubt very much there are the votes in the Senate that could get him, you need two-thirds of the Senate, 67 votes.

But I certainly think that the American people need to understand what this president has done, his contempt for the law. And I think that is the process we undertake when we begin an impeachment inquiry.

COOPER: In the speech today, you talk about the 21st century economic Bill of Rights and you harken back to FDR, and you're kind of pitching this as a continuation of FDR's legacy and even Martin Luther King Jr.

Can you explain how this is pertinent to a vision of Democratic socialism?

SANDERS: Absolutely. Back in 1944, in a little-remembered State of the Union speech, it was the end of World War II. And Roosevelt said, look, we have a Bill of Rights in this country and we have a Constitution, I'm paraphrasing him, which says we have all kinds of great right, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and all of that is great.

But what we do not have is an economic Bill of Rights, we don't guarantee a decent standard of living to all people. That's what he said. And he died a year later and, in fact, that mantle has never been picked up.

So, what I am saying today is that are we truly free -- and this is in a sense what Roosevelt was saying -- if you're going out and you're working 70 or 80 hours a week because of the wages you're living -- you're working under are starvation wages? Are you free if you can't afford to go to the doctor in the wealthiest country in the history of the world and you get sicker or maybe you die because you can't afford health insurance? Are you free if you are a young, bright person, but you can't afford to go to college or you leave school $50,000 or $100,000 in debt? Are you free if you're sleeping out on the street tonight?

Anderson, half a million Americans including many veterans are sleeping out on the street tonight.

So what I am saying, picking up from Roosevelt, that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world now is the time to finally state that economic rights are human rights, that everybody in this country deserves a job, a decent pay, that health care is a human right, that a full education is a human right. A clean environment is a human right. Affordable housing is a human right.

Retirement security, we got millions of old people and senior citizens in this country who literally cannot afford the prescription drugs they desperately need.

COOPER: Yes, you are leaning into Democratic socialism. Obviously everyone has known you're a Democratic socialist. I mean, you are clearly trying to sort of explain what your view of what that means to, you know, an American population and many people who hear the socialism part and maybe not the Democratic part, and you know president ultimately will be yelling Venezuela to you as much as possible.

SANDERS: Yes. Well, that's exactly the point and the other point that I made today is that, in fact, people like Donald Trump are also socialists, except they are corporate socialists. They are prepared and do provide hundreds of billions of dollars every single year in subsidies, and tax breaks to large corporations and the wealthy.

Anderson, you will remember very well, the Wall Street bailout. Now, Wall Street is the epitome of unfettered capitalism. That's what they believe. Except when their greed and illegal behavior nearly destroyed the economy, they went begging to the Congress.

They were big time socialists, and they said, we need federal help, give us $700 billion from the Treasury and trillions of dollars in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve.

You got the fossil fuel industry today which is literally destroying the planet and they get billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks.

You have Amazon, owned by the wealthiest person in this country, Jeff Bezos, made $11 billion last year, that's what Amazon made in profits. They didn't pay a nickel in federal income taxes.

So, in fact, you got Donald Trump himself as part of his housing endeavors received tens and tens of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks.

So, you do have socialism in this country, except as Martin Luther King reminded us, it's socialism for the very rich, and unfettered individualism for the poor.

COOPER: We're going to take a quick break, I want to continue it conversation. It's an important on, Senator Sanders, in just a moment.

Still, more ground to cover, including as we just started touching on, big money and President Trump's attack on Democrats writ large, and his take on socialism and the senator himself.

A lot more ahead. We'll be right back.

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COOPER: We're talking to Senator Bernie Sanders tonight about embracing the label with President Trump name (ph) and some Democrats treat as an epithet socialist, in this case Democratic socialist, which the senator today sought to weave into a progressive tapestry as it were tracing back to the new deal and before.

He also cited Franklin Roosevelt to open scorn for government organized money -- organized by money as FDR called it seeming to welcome as FDR did at the time the attacks on him that have already begun.

Here's President Trump at a Republican fund-raiser in Iowa last night painting Democrats as angry and extreme.

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[20:35:04] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Democrat Party has never been angrier. They're so angry. Do you ever see a people so angry? For what? For what? These are angry people. Every day the Democrat Party is becoming more and more unhinged and more and more extreme. They're going crazy. Do you love it? I sort of love it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Back now with Senator Sanders. You talked today in your speech about compassion, justice and love as sort of the hallmarks of how you see leadership and your leadership. You know how the President's going to paint your talk to Democratic socialism besides, you know, Venezuela. Is -- do enough Americans know what you mean by that and what that actually looks like?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, Anderson, that's why I'm on your show tonight.

COOPER: That's why I'm asking you.

SANDERS: Look, what we have to understand, for example, just for example, the United States is the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a right. In many countries in Europe, Germany, for one, you go to college and the cost of college is zero. I think in Finland they actually pay you to go to college.

In most countries around the world the level of income and wealth inequality which in the United States today is worse than in any time since the 1920s with three families owning more wealth than the bottom half of America. That level of income and wealth in quality is much less severe than it is right here in the United States.

COOPER: But as you know, the taxes in many of those countries are much higher than they are in -- the individual and personal tax are much higher than they are in the United States.

SANDERS: Yes. But I suspect that a lot of people in this country would be delighted to pay more in taxes if they had health -- if they had comprehensive health care as a human right. I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border. You go to the doctor any time you want. You don't take ought your wallet.

You have heart surgery, you have a heart transplant, you come out of the hospital and it costs you nothing. Your kids in many countries around the world can go to the public colleges and universities tuition-free. Wages in many cases are higher, so there is a tradeoff.

But at the end of the day, I think, that most people will believe they're going to be better off when their kids have educational opportunities without out-of-pocket expenses, when they have healthcare as a human right, when they have affordable housing, when they have decent retirement security, think most Americans will understand that that is a good deal.

COOPER: When somebody is looking at you as a candidate, when someone is looking at Senator Elizabeth Warren as a candidate, both progressive candidates obviously. There are now several polls that are trailing Elizabeth Warren. It's kind of ridiculous to look at polls at this stage of a, you know, primary battle. But, she does not have the label Democratic socialist, you do. Is it a liability?

SANDERS: I don't think so and I'll tell you why. Look, I mean, I certainly have known Elizabeth for many, many years since she's a --

COOPER: She says she's a capitalist.

SANDERS: Yes, I know. And I know many of the other candidates who are in my view knowing them personally, well intentioned and decent people who want to do the right thing. But here is the point, Anderson, that I want to make.

One of the reasons that so many Americans are dispirited about the political process is they hear candidates come forward and say, "I want to do this and I want to do that and I want to do that," but nothing happens. And the reason for that is not that that the candidates are lying, it is -- we have to deal with the reality that we don't talk about too much.

And that is the power structure of America, the fact that the folks on Wall Street in the drug companies, in the insurance companies, in the military industrial complex, in the fossil fuel industry have so much power that no president alone, not me, not anybody else can do it alone. And that is why I talk about us, not me in our campaign, why I talk about a political revolution.

If you want to transform our energy system and you want to combat climate change, words are not good enough. We have to bring millions of people together to tell the fossil fuel industry they will not continue to destroy this planet.

You want Medicare for all? You're going to have to stand up to the insurance companies. You want to cut the cost of prescription drugs in half, which is what I think we should do, you're going to have to stand up to the incredibly wealthy and powerful pharmaceutical industry.

COOPER: And you're going to have to get it through Congress.

SANDERS: You're going to have to get it through Congress, but you're not going to get it through Congress when lobbyists and big-money interests control Congress. The only way that real change ever takes place, Anderson, now and in the past, is when millions of people stand up and are prepared to fight for that.

[20:40:06] And if anybody tells you that they're going to bring about real change in this country and they're going to sit down in Capitol Hill and they're going to negotiate this and that, they're not being quite honest because you're going to have to take on Wall Street and all of these other powerful special interests. And the only way that change happens, whether it is the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the gay movement, the labor movement, the only way it happens is when people stand up and fight back. So what this campaign is about is bringing together a mass movement of people. And I'm very proud that we have over a million volunteers already.

COOPER: Yes. Senator Sanders, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

SANDERS: Thank you.

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