AMY GOODMAN: 1953.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: '53, Mr. Mosaddegh. And how many people are familiar with that? Did people know that? Good. Not a lot of people--certainly, young people don't know that. But in 1953, at the bequest of British oil companies, the United States government helped engineer a coup of a guy who was democratically elected, who was thinking about nationalizing some of the oil industry there. He was replaced by the shah, who turned out to be a very brutal, brutal man, which then resulted in what we have today with Khomeini coming to power. But these are issues that virtually do--correct me if I'm wrong. Have you seen many shows about that on NBC? You know, it's just not something to be talked about.
AMY GOODMAN: Tune into Democracy Now!
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: All right.
AMY GOODMAN: It's a good show. Your thoughts that Donald Trump said that he would have won the popular vote but for the millions of people who voted illegally?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I know this will shock you: I personally do not believe every single thing that Donald Trump says. No, but I did mention in my remarks that that was a--you know, this is--we can go back and look at all of the totally absurd and nonfactual statements that Trump made. You know, and I am not a guy in politics who really likes to attack viciously my opponents. It's not my style. But I felt obliged during the campaign to say something that was just patently true, and that is that Trump is a pathological liar. And, you know, I mean, he was saying--and the danger is, it may be--you know, everybody lies. You know you're lying. But I fear very much that he may be not even knowing that he lies, that he believes that he saw--the only person in the world who saw in New Jersey Muslims on a rooftop celebrating the destruction of the twin towers, the only person in America who saw it, and he's utterly convinced that he saw it. And he may well be convinced of that. It may not be a lie; he may believe that he saw that.
But this statement, as I mentioned earlier, the danger of this statement is not just that it is delusional and incorrect, is that it sets--if you have a president who believes that millions of people voted illegally, you're telling every Republican official in this country to suppress the vote, to make it harder for people to vote, whether they are immigrants, whether they are people of color, whether they are poor people, young people or old people. That is the danger of that statement. And that's something we have got to fight tooth and nail.
AMY GOODMAN: Will you be running for president again?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Oh, now you sound--OK, now, she waited 'til the end of the program to sound like a mainstream media person.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, will I--do I continue to sound--do I continue to sound that way if I ask you, would you ever consider leaving the Democratic Party, that you're actually not a part of? And--
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well--well, let me answer the other question, is--four years is a long time. I've got to--you know, I'm going to be running for re-election most likely in two years for Vermont to the Senate. And there's just an enormous amount of political work that has to be done at this--at this moment. I think, you know, as now having been recently appointed a member of the Democratic leadership, my job, with the help of everybody in this room--look, we're going to ask a lot from you. And here's the bad news: We don't want just your money. See, and one of the things that bothers me is--and I will take this on--is Democrats spend an enormous amount of time raising money. And I have--for those people who were kind enough to donate--and we appreciate it very much--I've got to ask you a favor. Do not take up so much time--and I mean this very seriously--time of the candidates. They--if I have anything to say about it, they're going to be going to Kansas and Mississippi and Alabama, where they're not going to be raising money, they're going to be talking to working people. So we need financial support, but we don't have the time to spend an evening with 10 people. We need your financial help, but you have to allow serious people in politics to go out and start talking to working people so that we can transform the politics of this country.
AMY GOODMAN: Is that--is that a yes for 2020?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: So, no comment for 2020. It's a statement that--it is a statement we have to worry, believe me, about 2017 and 2018. And again, let me repeat what I have said throughout the campaign and I believe absolutely from the bottom of my heart: Politics is not about a person. We transform this country not by electing some guy or woman to be president; we transform this country when millions of people stand up and fight back. That will result in good leadership on top. So the goal right now is not to worry about who's going to be running in 2020 or 2080. The goal now is to mobilize millions of people around a progressive agenda.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, many people are deeply concerned about the two-party duopoly. You, yourself, are an independent or a socialist. Would you ever consider a third-party run--
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, I--
AMY GOODMAN: --like joining with the Green Party?
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