MSNBC "Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Good to be with you, Chris.

HAYES: Senator Sanders, you have exactly zero Republicans in the Senate who joined the Democrats and yourself raising the debt ceiling back in January. And we"re going to see this vote come up again. What is your sense of what the sort of temperature of the caucus is on the other side of the aisle about this vote? Are we going to see a showdown over this?

SANDERS: Well, whether it"s a showdown over that or a showdown over something else, there is going to be a showdown. And I think the Democrats and the Democratic leadership have to pick the place where that fight is going to occur.

And in my view, we should stand firm, not yield an inch in saying that when we have a growing gap between the very rich and everybody else and we have a $13 trillion national debt, we are not going to give one penny more in tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. That"s insane.

We are going to use some of that money to invest in infrastructure. We are going to create jobs. We should use some of that money to lower the national debt.

But we can"t surrender on that issue. It will be fatal in terms of the good of the country as well as politically. So, the Democrats, the president have got to hang tough.

HAYES: I want to talk about that, what that approach of "hang tough"

means. I mean, we"ve just set up this sort of chicken metaphor that you"re

you know, that Republicans, Democrats are racing at each other in the cars. And it"s sort of who"s worst first. Republicans have demonstrated this kind of implacable opposition. And also, it seems a sort of disregard for the consequences.

How do you--what is the strategy for dealing with that when--if you feel like the other side credibly is sort of willing to sort of blow things up, particularly around things like the START treaty now or the debt ceiling limit down the road?

SANDERS: Well, I think that the strategy has got to be--is to go out to the American people and organize them and say that, here you have a Republican Party that wants or is prepared to blow this country up in the sense of not extending the debt ceiling in order to protect the wealthiest people in this country.

Chris, this nation has enormous problems. We have got to grow jobs and we have to lower the deficit. There are ways that you can do that in a fair and progressive way.

And our job--to answer your question in terms of strategy--is go out to ordinary people, ask them whether we want to cut Social Security by 20 percent, ask the young people of this country whether they want their indebtedness as they go into college to go even higher, ask the veterans whether they should be paying more to get V.A. health care, ask the middle class whether we want to get rid of the mortgage home deduction or we want to raise other types of taxes that hurt the middle class.

I think we have got to draw a line. We got to rally the troops. And if we do that, I think we can expose the Republicans for what they are. And that is a group of people representing the wealthiest folks in this country who could care less about the middle class or the most vulnerable people.

HAYES: And I want to get you out here on this question, which is about the START Treaty, which is another place in which we are seeing a similar approach from Republicans. And there it seems a more difficult--you have a more difficult problem in so far as--the START Treaty is probably not front in mind for most folks right now who are struggling through this economy.

How do you bring measure to bear there on the Republicans across the aisle to get this thing ratified? Because if it doesn"t happen now, it"s not looking good in the next Congress.

SANDERS: Well, I think when you have three former Republican secretaries of state telling the Republican Party that it"s imperative that we pass the START Treaty, when now is the time when we don"t want another Cold War with Russia. We want to work with Russia. When everybody should be very concerned about nuclear weapons and the need to cut back on nuclear weapons, the need to make sure there are not nuclear weapons out there falling into the hands of terrorists--it is imperative that the Republicans come on board with this.

HAYES: Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont--thank you so much for your time tonight. Have a great holiday this week.

SANDERS: Thank you. You, too.

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