MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

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Joining me tonight is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Senator, good to have you with us tonight. The votes that John Boehner could not gather to pass this, is this just, really, the radical being even more radical than Boehner? How do you read it?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: It is. I think as right wing as Boehner is, he cannot control his even more right-wing extremists. But the main point, Ed, here is the point you just made. This country today has 16 percent real unemployment. Twenty-five million people without jobs or underemployed.

What the country is demanding is a real jobs program to put the American people back to work. The Republicans have nothing to say, except the same old mantra, let`s give more tax breaks to billionaires and let`s cut programs for working people and the vulnerable and the sick.

So, I think the president is now -- I`m sorry?

SCHULTZ: Well, I want to ask you about President Obama. I mean, he is saying things he has not said in the last three years. I mean, he`s being very aggressive. He`s taking it to `em.

Is it too little, too late? Can his jobs plan passed and will he get the people with him?

SANDERS: I don`t think it`s too late. And, Ed, I`m just delighted. I mean, you and I have been chatting for months about how we want to see this president stand up and make it clear he`s prepared to take on the big money interests, prepared to take on the multi-corporations. Those guys are doing phenomenally well. Corporate profits soaring, richest people doing better than they`ve ever done while their effective tax rate is the lowest in decades -- meanwhile, we have massive unemployment.

What the American people want to hear -- the president say, and he`s beginning to say it, is we`re going to put people back to work, we`re going to ask the wealthiest people in this country to start paying their fair
share of taxes.

Also, I would like to say, Ed, as somebody who is the chairman of the defending Social Security caucus, I have been very concerned about some of the language coming from the White House over last couple of months. I am delighted -- delighted to hearing the president saying he is not going to cut Social Security, he is not going to cut benefits for Medicare. That`s an important step forward.

What the president is now doing is making sense in terms of good public policy and I think he`s talking the language that the American people, especially working people, want to hear from their president.

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