The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3542 Bernie Sanders On Oligarchy Trump Sponsored Wage Theft W Bernie Sanders Kalena Thomhave

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

It's Hump Day on the Majority Report On today's program: Ahead of Trump's rally in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, News Nation talk to locals on their thoughts on Trump's economy and the results were not good for the president. Trump kicks off his "Affordability Messaging" tour and spends most of his time at the podium complaining about immigrants and replaying his old hits but with much less energy and way fewer people in the audience. Independent journalist, Kalena Thomhave joins Sam to discuss her piece in Capital & Main titled, Home Care Workers Are Losing Minimum Wage Protections — and Fighting Back. Senator Bernie Sanders joins Sam and Emma for a conversation about wealth inequality and his book, Fight Oligarchy. In the Fun Half: CNN interviews Caleb Ragland, a soybean farmer relays the dire economic disaster that American farmers are facing under Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Trump announces a $12 billion bailout for farmers, funded by tariff taxes paid by Americans — a package that will almost certainly end up lining the pockets of Monsanto executives and similar agribusiness giants. Candace Owens responds to Tim Pool's rant attacking her over Charlie Kirk conspiracy theories. If you are in Kentucky or just interested check out the Bluegrass DSA All that and more. The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: SMALLS: For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping, when you head to Smalls.com/MAJORITY PROLON: Get 15% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Nutrition Program at ProlonLife.com/majority  ZBIOTICS: Go to https://zbiotics.com/MAJORITY and use MAJORITY at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics SUNSET LAKE: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com  

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live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Kalena, Tom Hav, Pittsburgh-based independent journalist on inequality, on home care workers losing their minimum wage protections under the Trump administration. Then Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator of Vermont, author of Fight oligarch. on the oligarchy and more. Also on the program today, a third federal judge approves on sealing of the Epstein documents. We'll see if Trump's DOJ will actually do it.

Democrat wins Miami mayoral race for the first time in 30 years. A special election in Georgia, a Democrat flips a state house district that had been dummy-mandered, one that Trump won by 13 points. Trump on an affordability tour plays the very, very tired hits. Republicans in the House to end its boat strike probe because they never really cared. In the Senate, Republicans will offer a bill to replace Obamacare subsidies with a one-time payment that goes into health savings accounts that will come. cover maybe a

tenth of what those Obamacare subsidies covered. The U.S. to subject foreign tourists to social media history review, Trump regime to shut down a

Biden-era student loan cancellation for about 7 million people. The EPA is wiping mention of human-cause climate change from its website. In Illinois, Pritzker signs a law. Banning immigration arrests at courthouse.

Limits info given to ICE makes it easier to sue those federal agents. Lastly, 25-year-old glycophate safety study retracted after it was discovered that the study was written by Monsanto. All this and more on today's. majority report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us. Emma Vigland out today, although she will join us for the Bernie Sanders interview.

We interviewed him yesterday afternoon, and we will be playing that after we speak to Kalina Tom Have. So Donald Trump is on an affordability, tour, because, which is sort of fascinating, did they bill it as the affordability tour? That's what I read on Fox. And you'll recall that he got sick of the word affordability. No, I'm sorry. Day one after Mom Donnie went, we've got to talk more about affordability.

Then day two, I'm sick of affordability. We're not talking about affordability. Then yesterday, Donald Trump. heads to Pennsylvania out near the Poconos at the

Mount Airy Casino Resort because he's a man of the people. Cost of living is so bad at this casinos. And so he had to a casino. It was a venue of about 600, 700

people. And he's out there, you know, wanting to talk to the economy because, you know, Here is News Nation is interviewing some Pennsylvanians, and this is what they say about the economy. We're still struggling even when we have our money coming through.

We had a suffer going almost a week with no food. I mean, food prices are up, but I think gas is down, coming down. I think things are getting a lot better. The economy's down the tubes. Healthcare is awful. Prescriptions are terrible. Groceries are off the charts. And I think the only way we're going to do better is if he gets out and somebody else gets in.

Now, the second guy definitely was like a hardcore Trumper and was just had to admit, incidentally, gas prices are not down. But nevertheless, here's Donald Trump. He hears these people. He knows what they want. And he addressed it very much. We're going to play number three. Go ahead.

We had a meeting. And I say, why is it? We only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few. Let us have a few. From Denmark. Do you mind sending us for you people? Send us some nice people.

Do you mind? But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime. The only thing they're good at is going after ships. Okay. How many people in that audience, I think, even know what Somalia is? I don't think they had a clip. Could find it on a map.

No. And so he... I've seen the Tom Hanks movie about the pirates. Incidentally, only 700 people in that venue. 700 people. There were more people at the Mamdani satellite election party. in any given one of them, then we're in that place.

And so he doesn't get the, he doesn't get the rush that he wants from saying Somalia, because they're all like, none of those people have met anybody from Somalia. They don't know. I mean, with all due respect, I suspect, like, you could put one person from Somalia

and one person from Norway, and a significant portion of those people would not be able to tell which country they came from. So he's got to get a little more explicit. And here he does with number four. Please raise your hand. That's for Minnesota, you know. That's called the great big Minnesota scam

with one of the dumbest governors ever in history. I love this Elon Omar, whatever the hell. Her name is with a little ching, the little turban ching. I love her. She comes in. There's nothing but bitch. She's always complete. She comes from her country.

Can we just look at this? I'm sorry. This feels racist against white people. Come on. Just go back a little bit. I want you to look at the guy in the back there with the white hat. When Trump says all she does is bitch. Okay.

This guy has finally been heard. He has been dealing with this for his full, whatever it is, 25 years. Go back just a little bit. Watch his reaction. Go ahead. Bitch. She's always complained.

She comes from her country where, I mean, it's considered about the worst country in the world, right? They have no military. They have no nothing. They have no parliament. They don't know what the hell the word parliament means. They have nothing. They have no police.

Pause it for a second. We all do respect to everybody in the audience. How many of them? know the word parliament can you explain to me can you explain to me a parliamentary form of government go ahead at least themselves they kill each other all the time i love it she comes to our country and she's always complaining about the constitution allows me to do this the consulate we ought to get her to hell out she married her brother in order to get in Right? She married her brother.

Easy there. Can you imagine if Donald Trump married his sister, beautiful, she's a beautiful person. If I married my sister to get my citizenship, do you think I'd last for about two hours, or would it be something less than that? She married her brother to get it before she's illegal. Can you imagine if, for instance, I married my hooker and that's the way she got. that's the way she got citizenship. Or if I dated my daughter, just for a moment, imagine if I dated my daughter.

Think about that. I'm going to think about that for a second. Give me an hour or two and think about me like dating my daughter. Just think about how hot she is. And I'll think about that. Think about that for a minute. Imagine if Rudy Giuliani married his second cousin. Oh yeah.

Can you imagine it? If he had multiple affairs. Can you imagine that? That would be, oh, God. Listenhip, do you think I'd last for about two hours? How could I last? How could I last? Something less than that.

She married her brother to get in. Therefore, she's here illegally. She should get the hell out. Throw it a hell out. She does nothing but complain. Nasty. Well, hold, whoa, wait, wait, put that back up. Does that shirt, does that shirt say Persians for Trump?

I think it does say that. Do you know how many Iranians have been rolled up by the Trump administration on this immigration thing? Like the guy standing right there, go get him. Yeah, well, I'm not talking about Iran or Persia. I'm talking about that's Iran. That's unbelievable. That's PBD's fault right there. There is, so there you have it.

That's Donald Trump's response to the affordability crisis in the country. Brian was saying that it's like watching Andrew Dice Clay. still doing his routine sometime in the late at 90s, maybe early aughts. It's like a half-filled club. He's at the VFW.

Oh, what's going? Why is everybody so old? I used to play Madison Square Garden. We'll play a couple more clips of Donald Trump. He seems very energetic. Two days after the day that I have it down that he gets juiced. I don't know.

Let's go do some racism for the yokels out of the scene. I'm feeling it. It's going through my veins. We get out there. Play the hits again. I don't think the guys behind him holding bigger paycheck signs. Like, no one sees that, you idiots. Have you seen videos of Frankie Valley lip syncing in his 90s?

That really is what it's like. That would be amazing. I mean, it's out there. in a moment we're going to be talking to uh calena tom have she's a pittsburgh based independent journalist uh on her piece on uh the home care uh workers losing their um potentially losing uh their wage protections uh first word from our sponsors I don't know about you, but I have so many things on my to-do list that it's insane, particularly around this time of year, but just about any time. And so if there's anything I can put off and maybe because I feel like I'm intimidated by it, I will do it.

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Emma Viglin out today. I want to welcome to the program. Kalina Tom Have. Sorry. I just asked you that. She's a Pittsburgh-based independent journalist writing for Capitol in Maine about the prospect of home care workers losing their minimum wage protections. Calena, let's just start with like what historically, just give us some history on home care workers because this has come up over the years.

There was an attempt to unionize them. I don't get five, six years ago, maybe more. I can't remember time has escaped me. But give us a little bit of background and welcome to the show. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Sure.

So domestic workers have struggled a lot to win worker protections over the past. past century, essentially. So domestic workers were one of the groups of workers that were excluded from federal labor protections. As many people know in the original New Deal, domestic workers being, of course, mostly black women in those roles. And then fast forward decades, a few decades. And in the 70s, when care workers were brought into the Fair Labor Standards Act, there was an exemption put forth for companions. The idea that a companion is someone who just provides fellowship and, you know, like a relationship, protect someone and that they kind of like watch them, a babysitter, essentially. There was an exemption for care workers if they were considered. companions. And so essentially

what was the theory behind that? I mean, and we should say I just, you know, want to just sort of fill some of this back in. You know, part of the the sort of tradeoff to get the new deal passed was essentially to exclude professions or jobs that were mostly filled by African Americans. So, you know, like porters on trains also were left out. And that means no social security pay into, you know, wage protections in that respect. So what was like, what was the theory by having like companions at that time? Yeah.

So I think the idea, at least, if we're looking at it kind of graciously, is that a companion is someone who is just like giving social time. Right? Like maybe they live with you and they keep you from being isolated. You might also think of like one-off babysitters. A babysitter couldn't be protected under federal labor laws. But the problem is that the companionship exemption was notoriously exploited by care worker agencies who classified care workers as companions. And they continued to do that for decades until 2015 when the Obama administration, made the definition much more strict and made a rule that third party agencies couldn't claim it. This is like, I mean, I think like this type of stuff operates almost, I don't want to say subterranean, but people don't really are not aware of just sort of the ability of the Department of Labor to change a couple of sentences in their regulations and completely change the fate of millions of people who are working. These are three million,

we're talking about three, about three million people across the country, right? Go into, you mentioned in the piece that they, the Department of Labor is reversing this and basically, like, tell us what the actual implications are going to be for,

and what percentage of these three million people are basically now going to, going to be swindled. It's essentially being swindled out of their wages. Yeah. So I should say it is a proposal. It's expected to be enacted. And actually, as of July, the department is actually acting as if it's already been enacted, even though it hasn't officially been put on the rules. They have completely thrown out the original definition that I was talking about that the Obama administration put back in. But essentially, essentially what's going to happen is that these three million people are going to lose their federal protections and the protections

will fall to their state. And so fortunately, about half of the states do have some form of state overtime or minimum wage protection for home care workers, but half don't. So give me a sense of like, I just want to take a wild guess here. Are those states that retain the protections, they have higher standards. Are those mostly blue states? They are. They are. But you'd also be surprised, like you were talking about with just a few sentences. So Oregon actually instituted a domestic worker Bill of Rights recently, put in all these rights for workers. But in the Bill of Rights, it says that overtime and minimum wage protections will match the federal rate. So in Oregon, they're also going to lose protections, even though they passed a federal bill of rights.

They passed not a federal organ. They passed a state bill of rights for the workers there. So it would have to go back to the legislature. And I guess my guess would be they just assume that the feds would not reverse themselves in the way they did. Right. Exactly. And so these folks, what I also find out. Well, let's also just talk about this.

There's these changes are you write part of a suite of 63 deregulatory actions by the Department of Labor. Give us a sense of like what some of those others are. But I would imagine, and I, well, before you get to that, let me just, I also imagine that these people, this is, they're sort of like, I want to say, shell game going on here because the story that the Trump administration will tell us is that you have immigrants taking Americans jobs and bringing down wages. A lot of these home care workers are immigrants. And many, you know, at least a significant portion of whom now, I mean, like there's a lot of pressure on this on this group of people um and it's almost feels like the they're being lobbied by these associations these agencies that provide the home care workers

they know that there's wages are going to go there's there's going to be pressure on their wages to go up right because there's going to be less home care workers available and they are basically foreclosing the opportunity for those wages, for their upward pressure on wages to happen? I think that you could make that conclusion, sure. It really, go ahead. I was just going to say that it's, it just kind of seems like a ticking time bomb, too, with all of the changes happening in care work, with Medicaid being cut, with more and more people needing care work. This rule is going to lead to more turnover. It seems like a real,

like a real problem. Tell us a little bit more about the suite of 63 deregulatory actions. Yeah. So I imagine that there's many more than that, but that was in one day in July. They dropped 63 deregulatory actions, the Department of Labor. And they really run the gamut. There were some COVID emergency resolutions that were reversed, some respiratory protections for workers that were loosened, OSHA restrictions for certain industries like construction were loosened, things like that, basically just a bunch of deregulation in favor of big business. And that's kind of the MO of a lot of the executive branch, right? I know when this suite came out,

they talked about how for every rule put forth, they want to, they want to roll back 10. Right. So if they have changed the language on the federal level, like are these corporate providers of home care workers, are they now like, paying like the state level minimum wage or no minimum wage and providing no overtime pay, is that basically what's happening?

Or are they waiting for it to become more official? Right. So it's not official right now, but what the Department of Labor did tell their investigators to do is to stop investigating any instances of wage. theft based on the companionship exemption, based on violations of it. So it's not official, but there's no enforcement mechanism. And if you and I know there's no enforcement mechanism, certainly these corporations know there's no enforcement mechanism. How do, if I'm in a state and I'm getting underpaid here, is there like a, is there a, I mean, I still imagine like I have a legal, I could still sue, right? I mean, theoretically.

even if the federal government is not enforcing it privately and you could also go to your state and especially there are a lot of states that are actually really concerned about this because they're concerned about the level of um of wage theft uh complaints that they are now going to get since state since workers won't be able to go through the federal government i know in my home state of Pennsylvania. Yeah, like the vast, like the vast plurality of, of wage theft investigations that they do are in care work. And what about unions? Are unions moving into this area? I mean, I don't know if they have the, it's very difficult to unionize under what's going on, obviously, with this Trump administration. But is there any attempt to organize these people? Yeah, it's also really difficult to

to organize care workers in the first place since they're all in in separate private homes, but there are a lot of unions doing good work. SEIU has unionized a lot of care workers, United Domestic Workers in California. They've actually already pushed back against the proposed rule and they got the state legislature to put overtime protections in place, wage protections were already in place, but they were able to solidify those state protections, those protections at the state level. So California workers will be protected thanks to thanks to the unionized workers there. Are they, are the unions, do they anticipate this lasting? Like, I mean, if, if Donald, if, if J.B. Pritzker is the president in 2028, did they expect it to

go back? I mean, it's hard to say, and I don't really want to speculate, but I think that, it would be likely because this is clearly, like, this is a change that came about because directly because of lobbying by home care associations, essentially. They were lobbying the Department of Labor directly. And it's something that domestic workers have worked on for decades. Even those who aren't unionized, the National Domestic Workers Alliance has done so much work to organize workers. One of the workers I talked with is not unionized, but she's,

an organizer with the National Domestic Workers Alliance. And they've put pressure on state governments and the federal government for decades. And so I want to say that I think it would go back if the executive changes. Well, we'll see. Kalena, Tom Have, we will link to your piece in Capitol, Maine. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. All right, folks, we're going to take a quick break.

And we're going to be interviewing a session. Senator Bernie Sanders, who is, we interviewed him yesterday afternoon. Emma and I both participated in that interview. And we're going to take quick break. We'll come back with that. We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland on the Majority Report. It is a pleasure to welcome, I think, back to the program.

It's been quite a while. Prior to my time. I think so. Maybe even as the podcast, Senator Bernie. Sanders, Senator from Vermont. Thanks so much for being here. My pleasure. Let's start with, we are recording this on Tuesday, but on Wednesday in the House,

they're going to be voting on the NDAA. Wanted to get your sense of what is going on with our military spending. The House is actually pushing for $8 billion more. than Donald Trump is asking, it feels like that's been going on for years now where Congress is sort of outstripping the president's request for more money for the military. This is, it has been going on for years, and thank you for raising the issue. It is not talked about enough. So when we talk about the defense bill, we talk about this aspect of it, we talk about that aspect of it,

but we don't look at the bill in its totality, which is to say that when you add everything up, what's in the defense authorization bill plus other military spending. We are spending over a trillion dollars a year on the military. This is something like nine times more than all of, it's more than the next nine nations combined, including many of our allies. And it takes place when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty and senior poverty of almost any major country on Earth.

So it's an absurd priority, primarily. It's a gift to the military industrial complex who make all kinds of money. You know, we just had, we just interviewed somebody who wrote a book called the trillion dollar war machine. From your perspective, how, where is, is there a weak link in terms of like beginning to move this budget in the opposite direction? I'm old enough to remember the peace dividend that we never really. saw. What's the idea. What it's sad, I mean, not shocking, you know, if people know my views, is that democratic leadership cooperates with the republicans. This truly is a bipartisan effort to give huge

amounts of money to the military industrial complex. I think the antidote is to have a national compensation and a move which is determined to change our national priorities. Several years ago, and I helped write the American Rescue Plan, in one bill with one provision, we cut childhood poverty in America by 40%. One bill, one provision. All right. So it's a question of getting our priorities right. We don't need to be spending more than the next nine nations combined. What we need to be doing is investing in our people, in childcare, in education, in infrastructure, not just more money for the military. And you can see how, these are connected. I, not to bring it back to the election, but I do think it's important when we're

reflecting and speaking about how the issue of, say, you know, the genocide in Gaza, for example, and the way that young people were completely disaffected by that. When I got into politics, it was in part because Obama was in opposition to the Iraq War and that galvanized me as a young person. In terms of reorienting our national priorities, where do you see the Democrats going and both connecting the income inequality piece to this, but also in terms of repairing broken trust about the anti-war energy that's so important in bringing young people on board? Well, Emma, thanks for that question. I mean, there was once a time, and I'm old enough to remember it, where a significant percentage of elected, of down. Democratic elected officials stood strongly against unnecessary military spending. And I fear that that is not quite the case.

Many of the democratic establishments are worried that they're going to be soft on defense, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, it ties in not only to the horrific support that we have given Netanyahu in the Israeli military tens of billions of dollars over a period of years, destroy the people in Gaza, but it speaks to the military literally out on the streets in American cities today. One might think that when you have the president of the United States for the first time sending U.S. troops into cities in America, somebody might say, wait a second, why are we putting more

money into the military? That's a little bit too radical a concept for many of my colleagues. Senator, I want to just reference your book. You spent the summer into the fall on an anti- oligarchy tour. You wrote a book on the more or less the same topic. From your perspective, and I know in 2016, you entered the race, and much of it was like getting money out of politics. The Supreme Court has, you know, as far as I can tell, shut the door on that prospect.

and very well maybe opening it up to even more money going forward. What do you see, again, this is another sort of like broader question about breaking this cycle. What do you see, is there a sequence? Like, how do you tackle the oligarchy? Is there anything that needs to come first? I think, Sam, ordinary Americans and not just people who are inclined to be Democrats. understand that this country faces fundamental systemic crises. Okay?

Not small stuff. What does that mean? I mean, it's what my book was about. By the way, if I may say so, it's a good book. And what it talks about, what we do not as a nation talk about, but people want to hear more about is the fact that you have a handful, a small number of extraordinarily wealthy people. Elon Musk now owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households.

Now, just deal with that. One guy, more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households. Don't you think that might be a subject of enormous discussion and debate? The outrageous nation, the inequality of that, the power that goes to that. Meanwhile, Musk, again, spends $270 million to help Trump get elected. And then you have these guys, the autocrats doing business in Saudi Arabia, cut up. So what you are seeing is a global oligarchic movement where a handful of the wealthiest people all over the world, in a sense, are dividing up the planet. You cannot run away from that issue.

It is insane that the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 93%. billionaires are flourishing, never done better, and 60% of Americans in the richest country on earth, I live in paycheck to paycheck. All right, so I don't want to proselytize here. But am I missing something in suggesting that this is an issue of enormous importance? I don't think you're missing anything.

You're preaching to the choir here. But back to just a little bit about where we go in the future with the Democratic Party, you know, I'm encouraged to see there be this coalescing behind the buzzword of affordability. It's the step in the right direction. But oligarchy versus affordability feels like kind of the fault lines here. I don't be naive on me here. I mean, that's just a poll-driven word.

What do you mean? Fair enough. Watch the establishment. Oh, yes, Trump is driving up prices, terrible vote about. All right, that's fine. But what do we mean? It's affordability is not just the fact that, that Republicans are resisting, extending the ACA tax credits, which means that premiums are going

on average double for 20 plus million Americans. That's a disaster. But when you talk about affordability, you tell me how many establishment Democrats are asking the simplest of all questions. What's the first question you ask about health care? Why are we spending twice as much per person on health care as to people of any other major nation and yet we have 85 million uninsured or underinsured. Is that not the first question you might ask? That's affordability. All right. But that's not quite a question.

We are happy to ask because you know what? You're going to start tangling with the insurance companies and the hospitals and the drug companies. So let's stay away from that issue. We'll stay with the Affordable Care Act, Obama Care, which is a disaster, frankly. So you got prescription drug prices. And we've worked very hard on it with some success. In some cases, we pay 10 times more than other countries do for the same exact drug. That's an affordable issue, affordability issue. You're going to have to take on the pharmaceutical industry big time. So my suggestion is we've got to make it more than just a slogan, a poll-driven slogan. We got to go for housing. What do you do about housing? Wages. I got to tell you, I underestimated this problem. I got to admit that. In my state,

it is unbelievable, but it's all over this country. You are seeing working people paying 50% of their incomes in housing for housing. That's insane. So if you're going to talk about affordability, what do you do? How do you build millions of units of low income and affordable housing? Those are the issues we've got to be tackling. Is there, I mean, it seems to me that the problem with the oligarchy is that the money that they have, these differences in this wealth disparity translates into political disparity.

So how do you break that cycle? It's one thing to say we're going to fight the insurance companies, but it's also it's tricky to fight the insurance companies. Or AI, artificial intelligence as well. Okay. So what do you got to do? First of all, I mean, I think, as you indicated earlier, this. Supreme Court decision on Citizens United has done more to undermine American democracy than any

decision, I think, in American history. So one way or another, we've got to get rid of it. And you're seeing states moving in the right direction, New York City, for example. Matching funds. Right. We've got to get around this issue. We cannot allow billionaires in their super PACs to buy elections. And it is getting worse, all right? One of the issues that I have been talking about, very concerned about is the impact of AI and robotics on the economy and many other things. All right. I think what you're asking is how, in fact, do you take on a group like Ellison and Musk and Bezos

and these guys combined worth hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars? And they start their super PACs, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that has got to be a major political issue. If I'm running for office, I say not only am I not going to take corporate packs, we got to address the fact that we have a corrupt, and that's the word, campaign finance system. And you want to get my vote. You're running for office. You want to get my vote. You've got to be, have way up on your list of priorities ending this corrupt campaign finance system. But ultimately, Sam, all of these issues, the economy, campaign finance, AI, health care, require a grassroots political movement that is prepared to take on the big money interest to fight for working people. And I'm happy to say that in bits and pieces and here and there, we are making progress. Mammani's victory in New York, Katie Wilson's victory in Seattle. Those are not small things.

And do you think, you know, in the, I'm going to assume that you're not running for president in 28. But please correct me if I'm wrong. But be that as a pay. Do you feel that we are at the point now where advocating for a Medicare for all is what it's going to take for a candidate to win the Democratic primary this year? Or I should say in 28 this cycle. Look, it is no secret. You know, I say I got all over the country. and when the crowd is not the $30,000 and it's so small crowd, I ask people, I say, you tell me, is the American healthcare system broken? Yeah, it is.

Everybody knows that it is broken, okay? You cannot go around defending the Affordable Care Act when rates have sought, and in many ways it's just a subsidy for the insurance companies. All right? So we need to move in an aggressively different way. I believe Medicare for all is the way to provide cost-effective universal health care to every single.

man, woman, and child in this country. I think more and more people understand that. And just in the last few weeks, we have two new co-sponsors in the Senate. Comcris Van Hollen and Tina Smith came on board. We're up to, I think, 18 or 19. They got 100 or more co-sponsors in the House. So we are making some progress. But we need to do is make sure that in any serious campaign, and I do that. If I endorse somebody, almost always, that person is going to be. supporting Medicare for. And and there is, it speaks, I think, to a broader problem here where so much of what the Democrats are offering or are not is defensive. It's about defending the Affordable

Care Act. It's about saying we're going to maintain a certain system. And when the system is as what we say, where we're at gilded age levels of incoming wealth inequality, you sound like you are defending the system that's emiserating people. And Trump sounds like he sounds like he's changing things. You got it. I mean, that Emma, that's exactly right. Look, Trump, in essence, when he runs for president, says the system is broken and I will fix it, right? Now, you and I know that everything he's doing, or virtually everything he's doing, is making a bad situation worse. But what Democrats try to do is tinker around the edges, you know, if your income is $43,927, you will be eligible for something.

It's enormously complicated. You've got to fill out 18 pages, but we'll get you that. All right. What we need to say is the system, what I would call Uber capitalism, is an incredibly broken system. Let's just go through it. Bear with me for one second. Richest country in the history of the world,

more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had. Riches people doing phenomenally well. 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Healthcare system broken. Educational system. Child care dysfunctional. Widely expensive workers underpaid. Kids can't afford to go to college.

You know, we once used to have a higher percentage of college graduates than any other country on earth. We were the best educated country on earth. That ain't the case right now. Kids coming out deeply in debt. Other countries say we want a well-educated workforce. We will guarantee you quality higher education. Don't worry about the money.

Our public school system in deep trouble. We are not attracting the best and the brightest teachers. Teachers are asked to deal with disasters in their classroom. Kids who have troubles disrupting the class. Bottom line is last international exams we saw the United States of America with something like 37th place. Got it, in terms of math, science, writing, and so forth, and so on. Housing, a disaster.

Transportation, try getting on a plane and seeing if you're going to get any place on time. It ain't going to happen. So if you look at the food, you've got the food industry and essentially, you know, giving our kids crap, which causes obesity, which causes diabetes, a number of other illnesses. See, if you look at the basic necessities of life, health, education, nutrition, housing. We're not doing well.

We are doing rather poorly. So we need a radical and fundamental transformation of American society, a government that works for everybody, not just Mr. Musk and his friends. When you look at what has taken place over the past 11 months, the I mean I don't think we have seen a more destructive force in terms of just the apparatus of our government, whether it's like, you know, consumer financial protection bureau, the NLRB, the IRS, the Department of Education, I mean, the Department of Education, I mean, on and on and on, the institutions themselves, the flow of people through it, the institutional memory, all of this destroyed in a way that I feel like, We've never experienced in modern times. We have never experienced before. Sam, we are dealing, let's see who we are dealing with.

We're dealing with the president who really does not believe in the Constitution. When he has a lavish dinner and wonderful events for MBS, the dictator of Saudi Arabia, that's not an accident. And then he disparages Europe. What is that about? This is his idea. of what government should be about. NBS, as you know, in Saudi Arabia,

it's a trillion-dollar family, the wealthiest family in the world. They imprison, torture their political opponents. They do whatever they want to do, building cities and so forth and so on. That is Trump's vision of what government should be about. So in the process, you're going to act illegally. And the other thing,

and unconstitutionally, you're going to destroy every agency of government that works for working, families and the other thing you do, and this is really disgusting, it goes a step deeper than destroying this or that agency, whether it's the FDA or the center of disease control. What demagogues always do is they say, you know what, our country has a lot of problems. I've got a lot of problems. And you know who the cause of that problem is?

It is in Europe. There's the Jews. It's gypsies. It's this group. in the United States, it's blacks, it's gays, and now it is the undocumented people, or it is those people from Somalia. That is the problem that we are having. You get rid of those people, man.

You're going to get a really wonderful country. That is what demagogues, and that is the disgusting aspect of demagoguery, rather than saying, all right, look, we got problems. How do you deal with a housing crisis? How do you deal with a health care crisis? You know, my views, you may have your views. Trump may have his views. But we don't have been dealing with those things.

What we do is blame powerless minorities, and you rally the American people around vitriol and hatred. Really a president of the United States calling a country garbage? People of a country? Really? That's what we try and educate our kids to do? So it is a deep issue. And what is the antidote?

The antidote to that, in my view, is the need to rally the American people around, A, and understanding the system is broken. And here is how we fix it. it. And if we get divided up because you're gay and I'm straight, or you're from Somalia and I'm from New York or Vermont or wherever I'm from, they are going to win. So the message is that you have a movement of people in Mandani in a very effective way, did that in New York, massive numbers of volunteers, black, white, Latino, gay, straight, the whole works. That's what we need to do.

And you can't do that, though. You know, a Democratic establishment, how did he do it? Well, you can only do it if you have an agenda that excites people that moves people. And if the establishment doesn't, which it doesn't, you're not going to do that. So we are trying to build. We're supporting really great candidates in the Senate, in the House, who understand those realities. Last question. You mentioned Mamdani. How important is it that he deliver on those explicit campaign promises that he made around affordability, around the buses,

about general improvement in life in New York City. Like how important is it to the movement that you're talking about? It's obviously important. I do not envy this 36-year-old guy. I was just with them last week, and we spent a lot of time together. Running New York City, man, I mean, people talk about it. I think correctly is the second most difficult job in the country. I mean, among many other things, he has a million kids.

in his school system. How's that? That's just an aside, on top of all the other problems that he faces. So the point is what the establishment, what the democratic establishment, with the oligarchs, what the Republicans want him to do is to fail. All right? It's enormous pressure on this young man's shoulders. They want him to fail so they can go around saying, see, Democratic socialism, he talked a good game, he wasn't able to do anything. Vote for the establishment. that's your only hope for the Cuomo's of the world. So there is enormous pressure, everybody in the world. I mean, you've got the entire establishment going to be on him trying to see that he fails.

But if he can deliver, if he can, and by the way, between you and me, don't tell anybody, his agenda is not terribly radical. No. In a city where nobody can afford to live to say that you stabilize rents, not exactly a radical idea. When everybody knows how important childcare is to a human being's development, making it universal high quality and free, not a radical idea. It exists many other countries. Improving public transportation, not a radical idea, making sure that kids in underserved areas

can get decent quality food with government intervention, really not a radical idea. So I will do everything I can, and I hope everybody in this country will to try to make sure that he succeeds. And there's just a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. I imagine those who stand against Mamdani are less concerned about his policies actually working and more concerned about the broader sense of like what is possible and what can be done if he succeeds. What a disaster for the establishment? If he succeeds, if you create a democratic form of government with a small D where large numbers of people involved. You improve the schools. You improve health care. You improve transportation. You improve getting nutrition out to kids.

You stabilize the cost of housing and build affordable housing. What a disaster for the Trumps of the world and the Republican establishment and the Democratic establishment. And all of those folks are going to be working as hard as they can to make sure that he does not succeed. So your point is, for better or worse, Mamdani's success and failures will not only impact New York City. They will be felt, by the way, not only nationally, but I think internationally, the whole world was watching this campaign. So again, I wish this young man all the very best,

and we will do what we can to support him. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you, guys. Take care. Thank you. Okay, folks, that was Senator Bernie Sanders on this program. Just now, we recorded that interview yesterday. Just a reminder, it is your support that helps this show keep on, keeping on. When you become a member of the majority report, join the majority report.com.

Join the majority report.com. You only get the free show free of commercials, but you also get to IM us during the fun half. get the fun half. But most importantly, you keep this show independent of any undue corporate influence. The only money that we take from corporations is the ones that we advertise, that we allow to sponsor the program. And we have no, I guess, big seven a day has a lot of its talons in us. but aside from that also just coffee speaking of talents this co-op in madison wisconsin uh who um really takes care to to treat their suppliers farmers in chiapas and in africa um i think mostly west africa but i'm not sure um maybe

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at shop.mot Majority ReportRadio.com. And, of course, the Discord, majority discord.com. Matt. Yeah, two things to plug today. First, selfishly, my Instagram, I'm trying to... God! It's the wrong season for that type of selfishness. it's like the right season for that

I can think about what kind of presents I'm going to get all that sort of stuff a gift basket my parents can send me do your parents send you gift baskets yeah send me like monster cookies and fudge and all that stuff for Christmas it's delicious I get I put on like five pounds

of like two days all right um so yeah my Instagram because I'm trying to get off of Twitter because I basically just like provoke Nazis and I don't know if it's you know I don't know how much I need to do that more than I already am. And also, Jacobin's show, which I produce,

David Griscom had Jasper and Nathaniel. Now, we had 16,000 views on the second show, and then we had Jasper on to talk about the West Bank, and YouTube absolutely buried it. We got 1.5,000. So go subscribe, because you probably didn't see this recommended to you in your algorithm, but go subscribe to Jacobin on YouTube, and make sure you get the Jackman show,

which airs at 10 o'clock every Friday morning. Something weird is going on with YouTube. Yeah. Like something weird is definitely going on the past month because we have lost new viewers. We have like we can tell like there's there's there's data that says new and casual and regular. Not subscribers, but new casual regular. I think like the definition is like casual is like under five times. viewed in a month and then I think over five times or something like that is regular.

And usually, and then new, and usually we're like one third, one third, one third in terms of makes up our whole audience. Our numbers are not down. It's just that the recommendations. I don't know what it is. That usually is what it is. It's not serving up the recommendations. Yeah, it's weird.

But usually your numbers will drop overall if it's not serving up. but I have a feeling I don't know something's going on they're always doing something over there and you know people have also complained that in their year round YouTube raps which I'm not even familiar with but I guess that's like the

who you've been watching most we don't show up in it even for people who watch the show every day yeah people are suggesting that might be the unlisted fun half thing isn't counting toward that which is plausible I guess who knows I mean stupid AI if

That's what's happening. We've got to burn this whole thing down. Let's go to Mr. Brian Vokia on Instagram and. Yeah. Yeah. Go to Brian and Matt on Instagram. Let me see what my Instagram is.

I'm going to, I'm definitely, oh, it's sam. dot cedar. Yeah. Is it getting busy on there? I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm, I'm, I'm going to take off. I've done two posts.

Is this the one you want to be plugging? I didn't know how to, do that. No, that's my, that's my main channel. You've done two posts on it? Yeah. Okay. And I think I did that by mistake.

I think people sent it to me. That's why I'm asking. Well, I'm going to, just, listen, I'm going to, I will start posting stuff there. If I get to, um, right now I have 5,400 followers. If I get to, um, what I think I got that much? I, should I, if I get to, uh, 10,000. followers, I'm going to do at least a post. And then also a story.

If I had 50,000, I will also do a post. If there's story or is it like a story? Yeah, there's stories. Okay, Brian's going to show me how to do it. Sam will be really. And we will actually, we will, that will be our first post. Sam will do the, you, you, teaching me how to do Instagram and me, uh, you know, being all a boomer about it. I'm not technically a boomer.

Sam will do the Tyler Chanel dance. I don't know what that is. Six, seven. See, in a fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now. But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow.

What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on for, hold on for a second. The majority. Emma, welcome to the program. Hey.

Fun hat. Matt. Who? Fun hack. What is up, everyone? Fun hat. No, me keen. You did it.

Fun hat. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Fun hat. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint. Everyone, I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today.

Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry. Women's... Stop talking for a second. Let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude? But dude, you want to smoke this? Seven, eight?

Yes. Yes? Oh, that's me. I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind?

We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm going to go to life. Libertarians. They're so stupid, though. Common sense says, of course. We fucking nailed him. So what's 79 plus 21? Challenge men. I'm positively quivering. I believe 96, I want to say. 857. 210.

35. 501. 1 half. 3-8s. 9-11 for instance. $3,400, $1,900. $6.5, $4.3 trillion sold. It's a zero-sum game. Actually, you're making you think less. But let me stay this. Poop. You can call satire. Sam goes to satire. On top of it.

at all? My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we see you. The week being weeded out, obviously. Yeah, sundown guns out. Should know. People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question.

Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks. I love it. I do love that. Look, got a jump. Got to be quick. I get a jump. I'm losing it.

Two o'clock, we're already late, and the guy's being a dick. So scrum. Sent to a gulaw? Outrage. Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Bye. Love you.

Bye-bye.