The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart - Sen. Bernie Sanders on Making Government Deliver

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

As Americans’ faith in government reaches historic lows and billionaires turn their attention to government efficiency, we are joined by Senator Bernie Sanders. Together, we discuss how to restore trust in public institutions by making them more accountable and responsive to the needs of the people. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast > TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Researcher & Associate Producer – Gillian Spear Music by Hansdle Hsu — This podcast is brought to you by: ZipRecruiter Try it for free at this exclusive web address: ziprecruiter.com/ZipWeekly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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For a limited time only, at participating McDonald's restaurants in Ontario. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Weekly Show pod. My name is Jon Stewart. This is our, I don't know if it's our, it's not our last, it may be our penultimate weekly show pod for this, the Lord's year of 2024, which has been, I don't know if you guys have known this,

but a little tumultuous. We appear to be in a transitional period where we are not sure about whether the ground we are standing on is solid, although the news media seems convinced that we are the road runner and the coyote, and the coyote has run over the cliff and we just looked down and realized there's nothing under our feet and now we are plunging to our deaths because the news media is always very circumspect. We don't know what's going to happen when Donald Trump takes over.

Unfortunately, we can't see into the future, but we have to be prepared for all outcomes. I don't know how helpful it is to get us shitting our pants this much this early, but I guess it's always important to stay on top of it. It's kind of why I'm actually really excited to have this podcast. I am convinced it must be such a strange thing. It is for me, for someone who has kind of complained about wanting government to be more efficient and

more responsive and making fundamental changes, to see that mantle being carried out by a group of people that I don't necessarily trust to do it in a manner that is. But I guess that's what it is when you, that's what losing elections is, man. You don't get to dictate any, you don't get to say, well, what if we did it this way? That's the beauty of it.

This is in the joint custody agreement that we now have in America, it is, I guess the kids are, they're going to live with dad for the summer and you just gotta fucking eat it. Just, I don't want them going on the lake in the raft. And you're like, well, you're not here. You're not in charge, so you don't get to decide. And that's, boy, it's, it's, that's a tough one. But I'm really excited

for our, our guests today, because I think he has embodied somebody who's been really consistent about fighting for the rights of workers and fighting for an economy that more aligns with, I think, what a healthy society should align their economy with and more bottom up and more respect for work and labor and not causing people to get squeezed in such a way that everything feels so tenuous all the time. So I'm excited to get to him. I won't babble around any longer. I'll just get to it. So let's welcome in right now, we're delighted that he can join us. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders,

Chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and Senator, thank you so much for being here today. I'm excited to talk to you. Well, my pleasure, John, and keep up the great work. Well, thank you, sir, you too. Now, you know, I have sort of a theory of the election and it is purely my opinion, but I got the sense that what kind of happened

to the Democrats was that they were in a position to defend a status quo that most voters, and certainly many, felt was no longer delivering for them. And there's all kinds of different iterations and permutations of that thought. But it feels like the party that believes most in government's ability to improve people's lives and to play that role kind of didn't understand that people felt that it wasn't, that many Democrats felt like, oh no, we are improving your lives. You just don't realize it. Is that something that resonates with you, sir?

It is, John. I would look at it just a hair differently, but I think you're on to the fundamental issue of the campaign. Bottom line is Donald Trump said, the system is broken. That's all. And I'm going to smash it. Right. I'm going to burn it down. That's right. Yeah.

And what Democrats have been saying is, you know, basically, we're going to tinker around the edges, but we defend the status quo. We'll make a little bit of a change here or there. So if you're an ordinary person, and you don't have to have a PhD in economics, what you understand is that you can't afford housing. You go to the grocery store, prices are higher. You understand that everything being equal, your kid may have a lower standard of living

than you do despite huge increases in worker productivity. You look around and you're seeing billionaires becoming much richer while people in your neighborhood are falling further and further behind. You can't afford to go to a doctor, or if you're lucky if you're blind a doctor, you have a little baby, cost of childcare is extremely high, you're worried about public education.

The system is not working for you. The reality is it is working very, very well for the people on top, the people in fact who Donald Trump will end up defending. And this is Senator, for you, this has got to be sort of a strange moment. So I feel like you for 50 years have kind of railed against this idea of an economy that devalued labor and kind of

overvalued capital and investment. And we watched, you know, money walk away from the United States, searching for cheaper labor and cheaper goods and all that. And we lost manufacturing base and workers. But generally, labor has paid the price of this kind of what they would call neoliberal economics. You've railed against that forever. John, the issue is, A, the reality and B, that we don't talk about the reality.

Okay, here's the reality. You want to hear reality? Man, please. Over the last 50 years, 5-0 years, despite huge increases in worker productivity as a result of technology. The average blue collar worker today in inflation adjusted for dollars is earning maybe the same, maybe a hair less than he or she did 50 years ago. How's that?

Not good. It's horrible. It's unbelievable. And at the same time, there has been a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. That massive transfer of wealth. So ordinary people may not have, you know, know that, but they know that there is something fundamentally wrong.

They're getting screwed. They had a good job at a factory. That factory's in China. And the very wealthiest people are becoming wealthier. That's the kind of angst that Trump was able to pick up on. And do you think it's, you know, when they talk about kind of, well, we have to defend democracy,

but if the people believe that our democracy is a kind of soft oligarchy, and quite frankly, not even that soft, you know, it appears to be an oligarchy. And do they think, well, what am I actually defending here? We need not incremental changes, we need fundamental reform. John, that's exactly right. And in fact, there was a poll, I saw, on the New York Times a couple of months ago before the election. Something like 45% of the American people said democracy is not working for them. So what does democracy mean?

Does it mean a big deal? You got to go out and vote every two years, every four years? It means that the government is supposed to represent me. I feel good about it. I have people there who know what I'm dealing with and are passing legislation that improves my life. Do you think most people in America believe that's the case now?

They don't, they shouldn't. Because not only do you have an economic system which is rigged, you got a political system which is corrupt. And again, we don't talk about it enough, but anybody who paid attention to this last election saw a few hundred billionaires, a few hundred people spending tens and tens of billions of dollars

to elect the candidates of their choice. And you're the ordinary guy out there, maybe you gotta vote. So what does that matter when big money is buying elections? So your point is exactly right. Democracy is not some abstract idea. Oh, isn't it great? I can vote every four years.

No, democracy is supposed to represent my interest. Most people don't think that it is. And Bertie, do you think this is a customer service issue? Is this an issue of being so removed from, I mean, if you were to look at, and I've looked at these kinds of tax bills where they'll lay out the eight tranches of where your tax money might go.

Well, the first five of them don't really impact people's lives. How do you create a system of government where, I mean, there are tons of people in European countries who receive social services far beyond what we ever provide in the United States, pay higher taxes, but express much greater satisfaction. Can our democracy deliver for its customers? Or are we stuck with a kind of more autocratic, oligarchic system?

How do you make that argument for people when they don't believe that it can function efficiently? All right, John, that is a really, really important question, maybe the most important question. Let's spend some time on it, Senator. Damn it, let's do it. All right. Damn it, let's do it, Senator. All right. So the first point you made is that it is important for us to do what the corporate media often doesn't do and take a look at what's going on around the rest of the world in many wealthy countries.

You take what I consider to me maybe the most fundamental right, and that is healthcare. All right? So if you go out and poll people, and I do, is healthcare a human right? Should every American be entitled to healthcare, whether they're rich or poor, young or old? And you know what the American people say? They say, yeah, we do believe that. And yet you have, to your point, very few people in Congress, in the Democratic Party, in the Republican Party, who really say, you know, healthcare is a human right.

The function of healthcare should not be to make huge profits for the insurance companies and the drug companies, but to provide quality care to all people. Now, you know what, that's a hard thing to do for any country on Earth. No system is perfect. But we have got to establish the premise,

healthcare is a human right, not just a commodity for large corporations to make money from. If you do that, if people understood that, they lived in a society in which they had healthcare as a human right, that in itself, John, would be a profound transformation of people's attitude toward government.

I cannot tell you, having run for president, you hold a million meetings all over the country. Hearing the heartbreak of people who leave hospital, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and they go bankrupt because they were dealing with cancer. Does anybody think that makes sense? All right, you know, we lose 60,000 people a year because they don't go to a doctor when they should.

Meanwhile, we're spending twice as much per person on healthcare. This is an issue we are not even discussing, let alone figuring out how we can go forward. So to answer your question, if government begins to deliver for people, they say, hey, you know what, maybe democracy works. Maybe I'm gonna get involved. If it doesn't, if it just delivers for the rich,

who the hell cares? Why do I need a democracy? Well, they even look at, you know, any survey will tell you, you know, the most popular things in government are probably Medicare and Social Security, and these are what are considered socialism. But in the rest of the industrial world

are minimalist social safety net programs. But I'll even go a little further, you know, when you mentioned earlier incrementalism. And I think that's such a fascinating point, Senator, and one that we don't talk about. Think about the trumpeting of, hey, we lowered insulin prices. We finally, after a 30-year battle of charging up the hill, we finally, as the federal government,

got to negotiate insulin prices. And you want to say, well, we've been spending billions of dollars in subsidies for drug companies, and yet our drug prices are much higher than anywhere else in the world. If this were Shark Tank and you were the investor, which is what the American people are, the return on investment is fecacca. It doesn't make any sense. John, you're right and you're wrong. Wait a minute. Don't pull the rug out here, Senator. Yeah, talk to me. Your basic premise is, of course, true. On the other hand, you have to appreciate, given the corruption, the broad corruption that exists here,

and the power of the drug companies, that it was a very significant achievement on the part of Congress and the Biden administration to at least do, start to do, what every other bloody country on earth is doing. So we spend zillions of dollars on prescription drugs. It doesn't take a genius to say, hey, drug companies, let's sit down

and negotiate a good price. The Veterans Administration, by the way, has been doing that for decades, okay? Every other country on earth does it. It was a huge struggle. So the Biden administration deserves credit, but your point is, yeah, so what? We got into a good. How did we end up in that position? That's, you know. Yeah, all right, so your point is, yeah, so what? We got insulin, good.

How did we end up in that position? That's, you know. Yeah, all right, so your point, and this gets back to, I think getting back to the campaign, not good enough to say, look, what we did, we got insulin, but by the way, a new cancer drug coming onto the market, you know what it's gonna cost the year?

Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Are we really talking about taking on the pharmaceutical industry so that they don't continue to rip off the American people? No, that's not on the table. Can't be talking about. And in many ways, for me, I think if I'm fundamentally thinking about why government plays an important role

in all this, we talk about the system of democracy as checks and balances, and we all talk about legislative and executive and judicial and all these. I think what nobody ever really may be projected into was the power of multinational, global, corporate interest. There really isn't anything other than government that has the size and hopefully the will. Look, the system that we have chosen to generate profit is a powerful one. And it, as you very adeptly pointed out earlier, generates an incredible amount of wealth. But very clearly, that system has victims and collateral damage. And it feels like government's role should be to support those victims and the collateral damage

and somehow be a check on this larger corporate entity. But the corporate world understands exactly what you said, and that's why they're trying to buy the government. So in some ways, you can almost look at government today as a result of Citizens United as the House of the Senate, as employees of large corporations and wealthy people. I mean, that's what, you know, if you're a billionaire, you can sort of super PAC, put hundreds of millions of dollars into an effort to defeat, say, Sheridan Brown in Ohio or other candidates or AIPAC. If you disagree with what Netanyahu was doing in Gaza,

well, you're gonna have to deal with AIPAC, who's prepared to spend $17 million in a bloody Democratic caucus. You wanna stand up to AIPAC, good luck to you. So that gets back to money in politics, how horrific Citizens United has been, not only in allowing billionaires to buy elections, but to intimidate people. You want to stand up to the drug companies?

Fine. They're going to put a whole lot of money to defeat you. You prepared to do that? Well, maybe I don't want to do that. That's where we are at. All right. So we got to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

It's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moosehead? Yes, because that's alcohol and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies

by region. See app for details. As a Fizz member you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At FIS, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at fis.ca. We are back. Senator, do you think it's fair to say even before Citizens United that, you know, kind of money talks, bullshit walks, like the government had been captured by these sort of moneyed interests for a very long time? I mean, even back to our founding, it's been.

It's always been the case. The rich have the power, but Citizens United and these super PACs have made a very bad situation much, much worse. So let's talk about how, you know, the Republicans have captured that kind of mantle of we're going to defend the forgotten man. We're going to defend, you know, the mantle that you have taken on for your entire career and never wavered in any of it. But is there populism for workers a false populism? Because if you look at, they might say,

okay, let's get more protectionist on trade and try and draw some of those jobs back. But if you look at all the court decisions from the right, it strips workers of their rights to form unions. It strips protections for workers. Is this a facade that they're proffering or are there things in it you like? Of course it is, look.

Well, there will be some things that Trump said, some things that Elon Musk said, some things that Robert Kennedy said, that make sense. But overall, I think it's very clear, you know, Trump is appointing his billionaire friends to the important positions in the cabinet, and his job is to represent the billionaire class with some exceptions. He's going to have to walk a bit of a tightrope because he's made promises to working class people.

And I think what our job, what my job, and people in Congress who share my views, not too many, is to say, okay, Mr. Trump, you talked about a 10% cap on interest rates for credit cards. That's a great idea. Well, you know what, John? I'm gonna introduce that legislation.

Let's see how far it goes. For years now, I have understood, as most Americans have, that the defense budget is bloated, that many of the major defense contractors engage in fraud and waste, massive cost overruns. All right, I have legislation in to cut military spending by 10%. Recently, you may have noticed Elon Musk came out and said, you know what, we should be cutting military spending. How many Republicans will go along? So when they say good things and appropriate things, I think we should work with them. Well, how do you walk that tightrope? Because what I find is there is a gag reflex from, and I think both parties have it, a gag reflex on Robert Kennedy says ultra processed

foods are killing Americans. And, and I'm like, yeah, God awful. That's gotta change. But if you were to say that, boy, are you just dog piled? How can you agree with Robert Kennedy Jr. on anything? He's this and that. And Elon Musk says, we've got waste and inefficiency in the government. And we're like, yeah, we've been yelling about that for years.

And as soon as you do that, how can you? How dare you? It's really interesting. Well, that's exactly what the challenge is. I'm holding a hearing as of today and for the next month. I am chairman of the Health Education Labor Committee. You know what I'm holding a hearing on tomorrow? To demand to know why the commissioner of the FDA has not, in fact, at least confided

with strong labels to warn the American people about the nature of the food that they are eating, which is leading to obesity, which is leading to diabetes. We have been absolutely irresponsible. Kennedy is right on that issue. Your point is that once they fluoride out of water, that's a disaster to my mind, plus many of the other crazy things he says. So you're saying, how do you walk that line? Well, that's exactly what we are trying to figure out right now.

Because they've identified, look, the system that we're currently operating in, Senator, is you've got food companies that have scientists that are working to design foods to get past the chemicals in your brain that tell you to stop eating, to get past those defenses, which creates diabetes and obesity and then you have the Pharmaceutical companies who come in and say well here here's ozempic and here's monjaro and and now we're caught in this bananas cycle Where these corporations are just profiting off of our? Incredibly poor health outcomes, right? All right, And that's exactly the issue we're talking about. Now, we have talked to scientists, to your point, who are saying that the food that they

are advertising massively on TV, which is another issue, is addictive. It is, I want more and more of that crap, and it stays with me my whole life, which is why we're seeing an epidemic in childhood, obesity, 20% of the kids now, 40% of adults, we're spending $400 billion a year on diabetes-related illnesses. How's that? One-tenth of the health care budget. Has the government acted in any way with the urgency that is needed? Of course it has not.

So Kennedy is right on that issue, but your point how we deal with that, plus the crazy stuff that he's saying is exactly what I'm trying to figure out. So how do we get the government to be more, look, democracy is clearly kind of an analog system and designed to be as such, and we live in a digital world, but let's go to a specific example

that I think proved really detrimental during the election for the Democrats and that is the border. Now, it's pretty clear that the border was a real problem in terms of security and the pressure it was putting on not just those border communities, but all kinds of other areas with the amount of people coming in.

The administration had the ability to do something in a pretty agile and urgent way through executive action. And they kept saying, well, if they put something in front of my desk, I'll sign it. Or the parliamentarian says I can't do and they've got all these reasons. And I always think of this as this is Washington. It's rules, it's loopholes, and it's norms. If you don't want to do something, it's complex enough. There's always a rule that tells you that you don't have to do it, but there's always a loophole if you really do want to do it. And there's always a norm where you can shake your finger at somebody for doing it. They let that border situation fester for two years and ultimately just did the thing

that they could have done two years earlier. And didn't that show people, wait, so the government could do it, they just didn't? Yep. I could give you many examples of that. The border is one. Bring them. All right, I give you one example.

Yep. All right, it's relevant to the state of Vermont. But it, I think, speaks to the broader issue. Vermont has been hit hard by flooding in recent years as a result of climate change. And one of the floods did a job on our state capital, Montelia, Vermont, beautiful downtown, and included damaging the federal building, which contained the local post office. Okay?

Post building was shut down. We needed a new post office for that community. There were many vacant buildings in the area. Probably it would have taken somebody in the private sector a week or two to find a location and start the process of opening a new facility. We and the entire Vermont delegation begged and pleaded with the post office. It took them literally a year, a year, to do what could have been done in several weeks. All right, and the examples go on and on. So if we are going, if we believe, I believe,

that in a democratic, civilized society, government must play an important role in protecting ordinary people. People are not going to believe that unless we make the government efficient and able to deliver services in an appropriate way. And I guess ultimately the question is Senator, do you believe it can? Have you seen instances where it does accomplish that? Like at the border, they just decided, oh, yes.

Yes, there are many instances. I mean, I can go back to when. I, my family didn't have any money. So I went to a public school. You know what? It was a damn good public school. Teachers were respected. They took their jobs seriously. It was adequately funded.

They educated kids in an appropriate way. Right now, despite all of the criticism you may hear, the VA medical system, you go to a VA hospital in Vermont, you know what the veterans will tell you? Pretty good healthcare, and it's cost effective, and they need more support. But those are just, yeah,

and there are great public schools today all over this country where teachers are doing a great job, VA is doing a good job, there are other agencies that are doing a good job. So I don't wanna throw out the baby with the bathwater. But there is no question that if we're gonna get people to believe in democracy, we've gotta make government more accountable

and we gotta start delivering for the people. And perhaps for Democrats, if they feel like this is a time to really reflect on that the changes aren't about wokeness or other issues that are ancillary. The change is really about getting government. I always thought this was really interesting. Amongst the Democrats, they'll say the billionaires have to pay their fair share and we need to

get the upper class to pay their taxes and do all that. But they don't do a very good job of convincing you what that money is going to be used for and what value are you going to get. So if you go to somebody and you say, we need those people to pay their fair share, but the public says, what are you doing with that money? Because it looks like you're just diddling around. So don't Democrats to kind of recapture the faith of the people have to begin to square that circle of having people believe that the money that they send up comes back with reasonable value. Yes, absolutely. It does. And I think that speaks to not only making government efficient, it's really changing the mindset of the whole country. Right now, you tell me how many graduates of Harvard or Yale College go into public school teaching?

What would be your guess? That go into public school teaching? Yeah. From, oh gosh, I mean, I would think it's incredibly small. I would think it's 3% or less. All right, I think that's true. What we have got to do is in a sense, change the value system of this.

Right now, we're getting into a really deeper issue. We talk about oligarchy, which is the reality. You have three people in America who own more wealth than the bottom half of America. You've got more concentration of ownership today than we've ever had, and you've got billionaires buying elections. To add that up, that is not maybe, that is oligarchy. All right? And then what you got is, okay, John, you're raising a kid. What should this child strive for? Well, obviously, to become like Elon Musk. The goal of life is to become a billionaire.

That's all it is. And if I have to lie, and you know, Trump is a perfect example of that. You lie, you cheat, you steal. He was involved in 4,000 lawsuits as a private businessman. He lied all the time. But that's good, because he made money. That's all that we want. Turn on the goddamn television.

You can't watch a program without being flooded with ads, right? All right That we got to take a deep breath and ask ourselves that really the society we want everybody going out becoming a billionaire Or maybe how do we work together to create a good health care system? How do you come into teaching? We respect you we love you because you're teaching kindergarten kids, that's important. You're respected, you're well paid. That is revolution in values in America. That's what we've got to do. No question, because it's, you know, listen, we pay lip service to essential workers.

There's probably no worse phrase to be called than an essential worker, because what that probably means is if they call you essential, they're underpaying you and over utilizing you, and you're underpaying you and over utilizing you and you're not getting the advantage. And by the way, let me add a little bit of drama here. During COVID, you die. That's what happened.

Tens of thousands of these workers died and after COVID was ended, forget about them. Oh, grocery workers, bus drivers, I remember. There must have been a hundred bus drivers that died of COVID. But it speaks to that idea that labor has been devalued. And I think what you're talking about is focusing on a bottom-up, and I hate to call it Keynesian, but a bottom-up approach to building a much sturdier

society, a society that's less concerned about Zuckerberg's 50th billion, but more concerned about a family's first thousand. That's right. And how we change that. But doesn't that speak to how does Washington get out of that bubble to understand the trap that most people are in? Child care is too expensive. Then when the kids finally old enough, education is too expensive. Washington get out of that bubble to understand the trap that most people are in.

Child care is too expensive. Then when the kid's finally old enough, education is too expensive. When you finally pay that off, your parents are older and you got to take care of them. How do we get them to understand that? You're not going to... You're missing the point here, John. It's not a question of getting them... People think the members of Congress and the Senate are stupid.

They're not. It's not a question of knowing or understanding, it's a question of who controls what goes on here. All right, quick break, and then we're coming right back. Paying $0 in management fees with Quest Wealth Portfolios can help you get there. All you need to do is make a new deposit before December 31, 2024 to pay $0 in management fees on net new deposits until the end of 2025. Lower fees means you can keep more of your money where it belongs, in your account. Don't wait! Opening an account is quick and easy. Switch to Quest Wealth Portfolios today and keep more of your money.

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I won't mention any names here. I have been very critical, I don't know what your view is, of what Netanyahu has been doing in Gaza. Okay? Brother, preach into the, I would say choir, but you and I both probably had to go to a synagogue so I don't know what, I don't know what, preach into the canter. Okay, good. I introduced legislation that would stop arms sales

to Netanyahu. We got 19 votes, which observers thought was very significant. Significant majority of people who consider themselves Democrats agree with us. I got 19 votes, okay? The American people do not believe that we should be supporting a government that is starving children right now as we speak. But if you stand up, you're going to find that AIPAC and other billionaire-funded super PACs

are going to go to war against you, putting huge amounts of money in a primary in your general election. So it's not a question of not understanding. There are many members of the Senate who will come to you privately and say, by God, what Netanyahu is doing is outrageous. I just can't vote because money is going to come and destroy my political career. So you gotta get at the root of everything, not at everything, but a key part of this whole discussion, John, is money in politics. People cannot vote their conscience,

they can't vote their intelligence when they know if they vote against the corporate world or the big money world, they're gonna get defeated at the polls. I have to say that's an incredibly dispiriting statement because it speaks to, it's not ignorance, it's willful and it's cynical. Look, John, you're a politician,

you're a United States Senator. You're thinking about, you know the issue. You know the prescription drugs are too high. You wanna vote with your constituents, but you know that if you take a bold step to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, they're going to pour huge amounts of money and defeat you.

All right? That's what you've got to be thinking about. Now what's the art? So, you know, you can blame the politician there, but he's a, yeah, well, I'm going to get beaten by somebody who do worse, right? The system is broken and corrupt, the political system. And that's what we have to address. Boy, that's a tough one. And it almost, you know, it almost makes you think

you have to design a system that can function outside of that incentive. That's again, you thought we started this discussion talking about the rest of the world. You know, every country has this issue and money always plays a role in politics, but it is much worse in the United States. Can we address it? We can. You can move toward public funding of elections. Maine, for example, the state of Maine keeps doing good work on this area.

So it is not an issue that cannot be effectively addressed, but we got to focus on it and make it a major, major issue of concern. But think about the, you know, the sort of the directionality of it. I mean, I'm, I remembering the days of McCain-Feingold when, you know, they sort of struck this bargain and we're going to rein in campaign finance and two years later, everything's blown up and you've got the Koch brothers and Soros and everybody's okay with it as long as it's their billionaire. If it's our billionaire, it's fine.

If it's their billionaire. And there was something I was talking about with somebody recently, which was maybe the way to deal with this is I don't know that we'll ever be able to fully regulate the money on it, but maybe we can regulate the time. What if we just made the election cycles much smaller so that it's not a permanent campaign? And look, the Supreme Court has watered down any of our corruption statutes. I mean, unless you literally write on a piece of paper,

I'm gonna give you a million dollars for this exact legislative outcome, it's considered business as usual. I mean, they've basically legitimized all corruption. Look, if somebody says to me, Bernie, I want you to vote for this bill. Here's a five dollar check. That's bribery. If somebody says, hey, Bernie, I'm willing to start a super PAC for you

and put a, you know, 200 million dollars into it. Perfectly legal. That's absurd. Right. And let me take you on a little trip. I want to comment on your length of campaigns. Again, it is no secret that in the UK, in Canada, many other countries, the length of time of their campaigns is much, much less. And I think in one way or another, that's what we've got to do. The idea that, I mean, literally the 2026 campaign has already started. I mean, it never ends, it's perpetual.

Your point is well taken, we gotta figure out that as well. It's the kind of thing that ultimately, when we really break it down, a lot of the things like what Musk and Rameshwani are proposing, boy is something I've wanted for years. I'm just not sure those are the guys

that I wanted to do it, because maybe I don't trust their, you know, I feel like they're too focused on woke or retribution or something along those lines. And we'll go in there. Is it Democrats inability to reform those processes that has opened the opportunity for this more nihilistic approach? Yeah. Oh, Democrats are in many cases, not all. Opened the opportunity for this more nihilistic approach. Yeah Democrats are in many cases not all

defending a system which is broken and people perceive that it is broken and Trump says it is broken now his remedies are gonna make it even worse and I think what I fear very much hasn't been discussed all that much. I give you an example. The post office, the mandate of the post office is a very good mandate. It is to deliver mail to every house in America no matter how rural it can be. It's a money loser, but it's the right thing to do.

You can privatize the post office tomorrow, make it more efficient, and yet you will lose the beauty of what the post office is supposed to be. The challenge that we face is can you have a post office functioning in the year 2024 which is efficient, which serves the needs of its customers? I believe we can. I believe we can, and I'm fighting for that. What these other guys, I suspect, wanna do is privatize, privatize, privatize, so they'll have even more power in the hands of the large corporate interests.

And that's the tough part, and that's why I always thought there should be, you know, people always talk about a moonshot. We need a Manhattan Project. I always thought we needed a bureaucratic moonshot where we streamlined because so many of government programs, and I know this from, you know, doing some work through the VA, set up an adversarial system to the people who are there to access these government programs that the bureaucracy itself that is set up

for whatever 3% of people they think might be trying to defraud it, actually costs more money to set it up that way. But it is two things, John. Number one, for a lot of the people, the ultimate goal here, using the VA as an example, is to privatize the VA. So of course you want to, you know, let's not be naive here. If we can make government so incredibly dysfunctional that people say, Jesus, forget about it, right? Do you think

if we expand in Medicare, just one example, if we expand in Medicare, which the American people want, to go up a hearing, vision and dental care. If we got rid of Medicare Advantage, because we're doing these things. And that's privatized, for people who don't know, that Medicare Advantage is a privatized part of the system. Which is eating away at traditional Medicare. So if you had an efficient Medicare system that covered all basic health

care needs, it was run in an administratively effective way, which what would the people say? They'd say, hey, that's great. I want to use that to cover all the kids and everybody else. There are people here who that's their nightmare that you have an efficient government, because ultimately they want virtually every part of American society, including public education, including healthcare to be privatized. And they're moving rapidly in that direction, by the way. How do you remove those barriers, Senator?

Because let's take healthcare as an example, because I think it's a great one to think about the system here. You can't really use the market system because it's not like you're going to comparison shop if you have a heart attack in a Starbucks and like they're going to drive you to where they drive you and you're going to have to pay whatever you're going to pay. But the ACA, which was set up to sort of bring more healthcare to people, which fundamentally you'd think, well, that's a great idea. But ultimately, it's kind of a government subsidy to private insurance companies.

Exactly what it is. It's a Republican idea. Right. What is the barrier from making a more efficient change? Is it purely that these other companies object? Look, I have ran for president two times on the need for a Medicare for All single payer program. Okay?

So it exists in Canada right now. Do they have their problem? Everybody has a problem. But understand that when we talk about healthcare, John, it's not only that 60,000 people a year die because they don't get to a doctor. It's not only that our life expectancy is lower than other countries. It's not only the working class people in this country live seven or eight years shorter lives than the rich. It's not only that we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Yeah, it all adds together. Guess what? We're paying

twice as much per person for healthcare than the Canadians and people around the world. Twice as much. Why is that? Well, obviously, what is the function of the healthcare system? Is it to provide quality care to all? No. It is to make the drug companies and the insurance companies rich.

In that sense, it is succeeding very, very well. And they will fight you to the death. Fight you to the death to give up that lucrative industry. So, you know, basically, I think what we should do is make Medicare more efficient, expand it, and then gradually cover all of our people through a Medicare program. Get rid of the profiteering, get rid of the billing, get rid of the complexity. My wife has a PhD. She goes crazy trying to figure out our healthcare bills,

right, arguing with the insurance companies, et cetera. Right. That's what you wanna do. Can you do that? If you did that, John, getting back to our original discussion, you'd restore a lot of faith in democracy and government. Well, that's the key issue, Senator,

because I think right now the question is, how does government, if people trust corporate interests to deliver services to them better than they do, the government has to find a way to be competitive. And the example again in healthcare, man, I remember when the Obama administration,

when he was running for president, they set up a state of the art digital team that got information and emails and everything and text messages. I'd be taking a bath and it would somehow show up in the water, give me money. And it was state of the art. And this same group designed a website that you couldn't log on to.

So why is it when they do it for, state-of-the-art and this same group designed a website that you couldn't log on to. So why is it when they do it for campaigns and financing and fundraising it works like a charm and when they do it for the people for health care the things that disaster. What's the difference? Well, regulation? No, that's how we use the word regulation. It is what we need are people entering government who believe that it is important or proud to say, you know, I work for this agency, that agency, and this is what we're doing. And we're doing it in a an efficient, cost-effective, quality way. We have beaten down government for so many years

that it is hard even to attract those people into the bureaucracy. But the bureaucracy, to be fair, is responsible for some of this. They layer in regular, I mean, it's when you talk about homelessness, really hard to build new housing. You know, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, there's a giant fire on 95, the road collapses.

If you had gone through standard regulatory proceedings of the government, the damn thing would still be closed. He did it in 10 days because he said, screw it. I'm not going to do this the way we normally do it. Good. And that is we need more of that. That kind of thinking. What the right wing will do is say, oh, we don't need all these regulations, and therefore we don't have to worry about the environment. We don't have to worry about

bigotry and racism. I don't believe in that. But it shouldn't take you 28 years to go to make sure that a project is environmentally sound, for example. So you're right. I mean, they can use that as an... But I want to get back to this point. Give you an example. I read something which to me was surprising and a bit shocking. Question to you. All right. You are a PhD candidate.

We're already off the rails, Senator. We're already off the rails. In a major university in physics and mathematics, okay? You're working on your PhD. Where are you going to go when you get that PhD? What are you going to do? I'm assuming you're going to stay in the same building and teach the next people that are coming up with a PhD.

Yeah, that's what most people would think. But you know what? More and more of those folks in math, physics, they're going to Wall Street. Oh. more of those folks in math, physics, they're going to Wall Street. They're using those skills for high speed trading, to know how to manipulate the market, take advantage of the market, takes a certain skill to do that. So you got all these guys. I mean, again, it gets back to money being the end all of everything. And I wanna see us have a day come when somebody says, I am so excited.

And by the way, in Finland to some degree, they do that. Only the top students end up going into education. Do you know that? In Finland. They did. It's a very prestigious job to be a teacher. I wanna see that in America. Hey, I'm really proud to work at the Social Security Administration.

We're getting the benefits out on time. People are really excited and happy about it, proud of what I'm doing. I want to see that pride. And I don't want to see young people just going out saying, I got to make more and more money. That's what life is about. But so much of that is about making work not just the dignity

of work, but the efficacy of work. You have to have your labor rewarded with a life that is not so tenuous and on the edge of paycheck to paycheck. You got it. It's about changing. We've had 50 years where labor has been devalued and capital has been given free reign. And every time you bring that up, they always say, oh, yeah, I guess, you know, unions are the only answer. It can't be just that the workers are responsible for getting their own lobbyists to go up against corporate interests. They have to find a way to be allowed to tap into that revenue stream that is being generated.

All right, two things. Yes. Sean Fain is the head of the UAW. And in my view, he's doing a great job. And not only did he win a very good contract for his workers, he raised issues which are now resonating all over the country. And one of the issues he raised is he said,

you guys are making huge profits. You've made huge profits over the years. And meanwhile, many of my workers, he had young people coming into the automobile factories making 17, 18 bucks an hour. CEO making 25, $30 million a year. All right. And then he raised this question. He said, you know what? We want a 32 hour work week. That was part of his contract negotiations. And everyone said, Sean, you're crazy. What are you talking about a 32 hour work week? And his point was, we are producing more product right now.

And all of those gains are going to the people on top. I introduced the bill, John, for a 32 hour work week. I was shocked. I walked the streets, I'm in the airport, people coming over to me. And you know why? People are stressed out. They're seeing work in a very negative way. COVID maybe, you know, exemplified that, what happened during COVID. So what we have got to be asking ourselves, and you're touching on it now, all right, you got all this new technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, making us more productive. Who's going to benefit from that? What are the repercussions of that? Are workers now going to have higher wages,

shorter working hours, or the rich going to get richer? Senator, I got, so I'm going to tell you an anecdote. I think you'll, you know, I was speaking with, and again, since we're not mentioning names here, one of the big muckety mucks of artificial intelligence and creating these new machine learning models and all those things. And he was telling me, you don't understand. These machines have already sucked up the entirety of human knowledge. They did that. That we passed that a few years ago. They're working on now going further than all that. And I said, in the way that globalization decimated our manufacturing base, to the extent that we still haven't recovered and we've tried to make various changes. Aren't you worried that AI, I mean, globalization was a change that took decades.

Industrialization was a change that took decades, still incredibly disruptive, created a lot of collateral damage. AI is going to do that to white collar work and to all kinds of other things in the span of months. That's going to be cataclysmic. And he goes, he sat for a second, he goes, we'll be okay.

He will be okay. We'll be okay. I was like, oh. He will be more than okay, but millions of workers will not be okay. Yeah, it's really true. Are you finding common ground with the Senate? I have never been more frustrated

than when I had to deal with the Senate through that, when we were going with the PACT Act and the Zadroga Bill. One of the things that really struck me was all the arcane kinds of Roberts rules of order that are used against getting things done. It seems there's always a rule that can keep you. And I'll give you the example. We finally passed that PACT Act through the Senate, right?

And we had, I think it was a 72 to 14. It was really for this Congress overwhelming. Right. The parliamentarian in the House flagged one provision in the PACT Act concerning the use of rural doctor's offices. Just in case there are people that live far from a VA hospital, the VA would take over these rural doctor's offices so that they could have, you know, access. The parliamentarian ruled that that violated the House of Representatives ability to that's you were levying a tax or you were doing something that wasn't allowed. We had to redo it in the House when it went back to the Senate.

It failed having nothing to do with that little stupid bureaucratic little flag. And these people had to sleep on the steps of the Capitol to get this thing through in the Senate again. I was so dispirited by that. Well, the Senate rules are something else. I mean, now you're touching on another hour discussion. We'll do it next time. Look, I can single-handedly go down there and slow up the whole institution. I can block legislation.

It could be 99 to 1. I could slow it up. Does that make any sense? No, it doesn't. Then you're getting into the whole issue of the filibuster. I had a similar experience, not with the PACT Act, which I strongly supported, with minimum wage. I wanted to raise the minimum wage to $15, and I'll

put it in the American Rescue Plan. The parliamentarian decided that it was not kosher to get in the bill, so we weren't able to put it in. Too much power to an unelected official. Right. And even with the elected officials, I can remember, you know, the Senate leader at the time was Schumer. And I said, you know, we were coming up on that Christmas break or summer break. And I said, can we get this on the floor? I don't know, because then they'll be allowed to ask for an amendment. And if they do an amendment, each one is two hours, and they're just going to try and run out the clock on us. You're touching on, you know, again, and it takes 60 votes to pass anything.

There are ways around these things and you know, they're- That's my point, ways around it. Yeah, there are budget reconcilia. We passed, you know, I know people are hard on the Biden administration, but they accomplished a lot. And I want people to remember what happened in 21 in the middle of COVID, we passed the American Rescue Plan, which I helped write, it was a $1.9 trillion bill,

which remember got that $1,400 checks into virtually working class home in America, stand expanded, extended unemployment, save childcare, small business, et cetera, et cetera. You could do that to what is called budget reconciliation. So you and Bill requires 50 votes, not 60. Senator, I wanna end on that. I wanna end on the lesson

because you brought up the rescue plan and COVID. In 2008, in the financial crisis, the government decided to use its might to bail out AIG and the other big corporations, and they did it at the corporate level, and they did it at the supply side level, and we had a massive recession. People lost their homes. People were out of work. During COVID, the government decided to help people at the personal level, surely that left an imprint on the government to show

if you deliver for people in the moment, you have a better outcome. John, that's, I've given those lines in many, many speeches. And what I've said is, you think government can't do anything? Look what we did. That one bill, John, in a three-year period, reduced, among many other things,

childhood poverty by 40%. Got it? That was one small provision in a larger bill. We saved the pensions for millions of workers. One small provision in larger bill. We saved the pensions for millions of workers, one small provision in that bill. When people were lining up for food, we got them $1,400 checks.

When childcare centers, small businesses, was it a perfect bill? Obviously not. But your point, when there was a will, and Biden deserves credit for that, he was all there. When there is a will to do the right thing, we can do it. We can do it. Government can do it.

But there has to be the will to stand up for working class people in this country. Senator Sanders, an absolute pleasure talking to you, sir. I love your passion. I love how you've been out there raising this alarm for your entire public life. And I really do appreciate. And I appreciate, John, all that you're doing.

You know, we've got a corporate media out there. That's a whole other issue. Doesn't talk about the most important issues you do. Thank you for doing that. Thank you, sir. And a pleasure to see you. Hopefully I'll get a chance to see you soon. OK, take care. Bernie.

Senator Bernie Sanders. I feel like that was almost like an episode of comedians in cars talking economics. It was, there's just something that's so, two Jews in a deli going, I don't know the thing about the workers. But, but boy, really appreciate his insights, his fight, all those different things. I hope you guys did too. I really enjoyed that conversation with the senator. I want to make sure, obviously we have our socials. Apparently we're on Blue Sky. We have to go to Blue Sky. So we're also on the Blue Sky, I think the handle is weekly show podcast. I

don't know if there's an act or a hashtag or a, I don't actually know how it works. I just know I tried to log onto it once and there was no trending topics and I just got sad and logged off. But that's because I'm an old man and everything has to be exactly as it was. Thank you all very much for listening today. As always, I want to thank our fabulous team. We didn't have time to talk to everybody today, but lead producer, Lauren Walker, producer, Brittany Mamedovic, video editor and engineer, Rob Vitolo, audio editor and engineer, Nicole Boyce, researcher and associate producer,

Gillian Spear, and our executive producers, Chris McShane, Katie Gray. I think we got another pod in us until the end of the year, and we look forward to that. I guess we'll try and do maybe a little bit more of a wrap-up show. So if you guys want to send in your questions about what I did wrong this year, please feel free.

And we'll call it Come At Me, Bro. Come at me. And we'll see if we can settle all those things. Thanks very much. See you next week. The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast is produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions.