AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of his being the first Muslim congressmember at a time when the president-elect says he wants to set up a Muslim registry?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Obviously, there is great symbolism in that. But to me, to be honest with you, as somebody who is not a great fan of identity politics, I am supporting Keith because he is a strong progressive whose whole life has been about standing up for working families and the middle class and low-income families. But your point cannot be denied. And that is, it will be a statement to the entire country that the leader of the Democratic Party is a Muslim, that we want a party of diversity, that we will not accept for one second the bigotry that Trump has been espousing during his campaign.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think Donald Trump represents?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I mean--
AMY GOODMAN: And who do you think he represents?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: That's a good question, and I don't know that I can give you a definitive answer, but this is what I think. For a start, in terms of the campaign, what he did is, as I indicated in my remarks, he touched a nerve. And it would be wrong to deny that. There are some people who think that everybody who voted for Donald Trump is a racist, a sexist or a homophobe or a xenophobe. I don't believe that. Are those people in his camp? Absolutely. But it would be a tragic mistake to believe that everybody who voted for Donald Trump is a "deplorable." They're not. These are people who are disgusted, and they are angry at the establishment. And the Democratic Party has not been clear enough, in my view, about telling those people, whether they are white, whether they are black, Latino, Asian American or whatever, women, gay, whatever, that we are on their side. And too often what we look at is identity. You're a woman. Well, that's good, but we need more women in the political process. We need more African Americans in the political process, more Latinos. No question about that. But we need people who will have the guts to stand up to the billionaire class and corporate America and fight for working families.
AMY GOODMAN: You were considered a fringe candidate. Maybe you, yourself, considered yourself a fringe candidate. When did the moment come when you actually felt the Bern?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, I'll tell you. This is what I thought, you know, and it's been a crazy two years. But, you know, what I thought is, look, I wasn't born yesterday, and I wasn't--you know, I didn't just get involved in politics two years ago. I've been representing the state of Vermont for 25 years in Congress. I was mayor of the city of Burlington for eight years, where I took on Democrats and Republicans to win election. And I knew, you know, that the message that we had--I could see it in Vermont. You go to the rural areas, by the way, where people are not necessarily pro-choice, where they may not be enthusiastic about gay marriage, where they may or may not believe that climate change is real, but they are sick and tired of having to work two or three jobs, not being able to send their kids to college, worried about their own parents. I picked that up, OK, in Vermont. And I thought that the message that resonated in Vermont--and I won my last election in Vermont four years ago with 71 percent of the vote. I did not believe for one minute that Vermont was any different than the rest of the country.
But what ended up--to answer your question, what happened is, before I decided to run--and the book goes into it--we went around the country. And we did, honestly--you know, politicians always say, "Well, the people asked me to run," you know, after they had already made a decision to run. But the truth is, I didn't know. How responsive would people be to our message? Well, I'll never forget. We were in--on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles--maybe the weather is always beautiful there, I don't know. But anyhow, it was--and I thought nobody would show up at a meeting. We had the musicians' union hall. We had 500 people coming out: "Run, Bernie, run." We were in Minneapolis--this is a funny story, which we relate in the book. You know, we didn't know our way around Minneapolis. So we were driving around. Suddenly we see this long line of people, and I comment to the guy next to me. I said, "I wonder what concert is going on." Well, it turns out, 7,000 people were there for an event. This is early on.
And what we were beginning to see with the turnouts, the turnouts at our rallies, more and more people coming out, more and more excitement, more working people, more young people, who indicated to me, in a million different ways, they were sick and tired of establishment politics and establishment economics. They wanted real change. And I will tell you, as the campaign progressed, that it was an awe-inspiring moment, a humbling moment, to be walking out on a stage--I think it was in Portland, Oregon, where the Trail Blazers play in the NBA--and you look out, and there are 28,000 people at a rally in Portland, 25,000 in Seattle, 27,000 in Los Angeles. So people were starting to come out. The word was getting around. And it was especially gratifying to see so much beauty in the faces of young people who want real change in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, who heard you were the people in that room, in each place. You were having the largest rallies of anyone, including Donald Trump, certainly far surpassing Hillary Clinton. But what Donald Trump had that you didn't was the media. And, you know, that was repeated over and over by those that owned the media. You know, "He is good for us." So, it wasn't just Fox. It was all of the networks that were Trump TV.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Right. That's right.
AMY GOODMAN: He didn't have to travel. He was piped into everyone's homes.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS:Absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: March 15th, Super Tuesday III, was the night when Rubio gave his speech, and Ted Cruz gave his speech, Clinton gave her speech, and Donald Trump, they waited for half an hour for him to give his speech and showed the open podium, as they often did. They showed more of the open podium waiting for Donald Trump than ever playing your speeches. That's what--those were all the candidates that night. And they played all their full speeches. They did not play one word of your speech. You were speaking in Phoenix, Arizona, to the largest rally of any of those people that night. They didn't even speculate where you were.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I wish I could disagree with you. No, no, no, Amy is raising a very--and we go into it in the book. I was stunned. I mean, you know, in the middle of the campaign, you're not figuring out this stuff or thinking about it. Turns out that from January 1st, 2015, I think, through November 2015, ABC Evening News had us on for 20 seconds.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
