Today, Explained - Bernie vs. the billionaires

Episode Date: March 14, 2026

Senator Bernie Sanders has a whole new reason to go after the world’s billionaires. We ask him about his proposed annual wealth tax and how he plans to rein in AI. This episode was produced by Jesse Ash, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Andrea Lopez-Cruzado, engineered by Shannon Mahoney and hosted by Astead Herndon. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. at a confirmation hearing. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images. You can also watch this episode on video at youtube.com/vox. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starring Samara Weaving, Catherine Newton, Sarah Michelle Geller, and Elijah Wood. Ready or not two, here I come, only in theaters March 20th. Get tickets now. Hi and welcome to Today Explain Saturday. This week, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Senator Bernie Sanders has just introduced his Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act,

a 5% annual wealth tax on anyone making more than a billion dollars. Now, that would be roughly 930-ish people, and of course it includes some big names. Someone like Elon Musk would pay up to $40 billion under the law. Someone like Mark Zuckerberg, about $11 billion. But Senator Sanders said it would fund something important, up to $3,000 in direct payments for anyone living in a household that makes less than $150,000. That means up to $12,000 for a family of four.

Now, this bill has little chance of becoming law. Donald Trump would almost certainly veto it, and it's a hard chance it would even get through Congress. But I still think it's important, because it speaks to something that's been growing among the American public and a signal that Senator Sanders is setting when it comes to the 2026 elections, and of course, the 28 presidential election. So I wanted to ask Senator Sanders how this bill would actually work.

But since I had him on the line, I also wanted to ask about some other topics that have been in the news, like AI in the future of work, his recent calls for a moratorium on building data centers. And of course, the U.S. Israeli strikes on Iran. But we had a little bit of trouble connecting when we first got on the line, which got me a peek at that classic Bernie humor. Take a look and enjoy the conversation. How are you? I can't hear anything.

But I do see you, yes, thank you. Has anyone ever played a game with you and God? I'm teasing you. I always dreamed of having Bernie Sanders pantomime yell at me. Senator, thank you for your time. Well, thank you for having me. I know that it's limited, so I I want to jump right into it.

Most Democrats have condemned the U.S. surrelii strikes in Iran, but Donald Trump is blowing ahead. Obviously, Congressman Rokana and Thomas Massey's war powers resolution failed to pass the House, meaning any chance of congressional action of reign in Trump seems less and less likely by the day. If you're an American who doesn't support this war, as many do seem to not. Is there any recourse coming from Congress? Well, I think what we have got to do is pull the... financial plug here. I think what we have got to do our best in saying is that not only is this

war unconstitutional, not only is it illegal, when we have so many strong domestic needs in terms of housing and health care and education, we're going to be just throwing tens of billions of dollars into another endless war. So I think taking a look at how we finance wars is one of the areas that we've got to move to. But bottom line is we've got to do everything that we can to stop Trump's reckless foreign policy, which is not only unconstitutional, not having gone to Congress, it is in violation of international law and will lead, in my view, to international anarchy. Anybody will be attacking anybody for any reason, not a good place for the world to be in. I want to ask about that funding piece, because that was what I plan to follow up,

Some Democrats have kind of gone back and forth about whether they should continue funding the war, even as they vocalize disagreement. Some saying that we're already in it. And so, might as well, support military action. Others have kind of hedged. I wanted you to kind of expand on that. You don't think Democrats should be funding this war if they're going to call it reckless and illegal. Obviously. I mean, not all of your colleagues agree with that.

I don't, you know, if you think the war is unnecessary, it's illegal, it's unconstitutional, why would you continue to fund it? You're just making, you know, giving Trump the ammunition, so to speak, that he needs to continue. So that makes no sense to me at all. I guess I was just asking because it did not seem kind of universal from the caucus. I also wanted to ask about a wealth task, you and congressmen, and Conner introduced this bill that would have a 5% annual tax on wealth for anyone making over a billion dollars. And importantly, this is a wealth tax, not an income tax, so things like assets and stock accumulation are also in play.

I wanted to ask about that number. Why one billion? Well, I think we wanted to make very clear that today we have more income and wealth inequality than we've ever had in the history. You got it? of the United States of America. We all read about the gilded age, right? Nichols and dimes compared to where we are right now. We're living in a moment where the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 93% where one man,

Elon Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom 53% of American households, where, while 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, the billionaire class has seen its wealth increase by a trillion and a half dollars since Trump was elected. How's that? They doing pretty well? Mm-hmm. All right. So I think the point is that at a time of so much inequality, we've got to ask the wealthiest people to start paying their fair share of taxes. One way to do it is a wealth tax.

I personally think starting off at a billion dollars is the appropriate way to go. I mean, the goal of the revenue is to send $3,000 checks to every American in a household making under $150K. Should I see this as a means of funding a kind of universal basic income? No, it does two things. It says that at a time when the very richest people are becoming much, much richer, while ordinary Americans today are struggling to put food on the table or pay for childcare or pay for health care, the working class of this country needs immediate help. And that's, by the way, just the one-year provision.

$3,000 for every man, woman, and child in a family of under $150,000. But on top of that, we make massive investments every year in childcare, in housing, in education, in health care, in addressing the basic needs of working-class Americans. and yet everything being equal, our kids will have a lowest standard of living than we will, and millions of families are struggling. All of our people should have a decent standard of living, and we've got to address the massive level of income and wealth inequality to do that. I definitely want to underscore, I definitely hear the importance of underscoring income inequality

and the wealth disparity, but France tried a wealth tax and repealed it. Sweden tried one who repealed it, and the European countries that have gone, back have almost universally said that it was because capital left or evasion meant that they did not see the necessary revenue returns. Why would that not be true in the United States? Well, I think we need to enact that legislation and then we need a political movement to make sure that it is implemented. One of the things said that... I mean, that's a pretty high standard. Well, one of the things that is really troubling to me, is what you are saying is, look, even if the American people want it,

these guys will evade it one way or another. Is that what you're saying? Other countries have repealed the wealth tax because of that exact problem. Right. Well, we have got to deal with it. If what we are saying is these guys, and I was out in California a few weeks ago, dealing with a state wealth tax,

and the issue there is that 15 million people, including many in California and Vermont, have been thrown off the health care. care they have in order to give a trillion dollars in tax rates of the 1%. And what the 1% are saying is, you want us to pay more in taxes so the working class people and children will have health care. Well, if you pass that, you know what we're going to do? We're going to move to Texas.

We're going to move to Florida. Because you know why? We got all the power. You got nothing. So your choice is either you take cuts in health care, do away with health care, or we take away your job. That's your choice. Well, you know, I think it's the time is long overdue that we stood up to that greed and say, no, that's not the choice.

The choices that you are in America, you benefited from America, you're part of America, you're not, you don't have the divine right to rule, and you play by the rules. And if we pass this tax, you're going to pay it. So I just want to underscore, what is the answer to the prospect of that evasion under your proposal? 12 tax. Well, you're getting to, I mean, if these guys, well, then you come up. Right now, what you're looking at is billionaires, in many cases, are paying an effective tax rate that is lower than a truck driver or a nurse. You've got a corrupt political system which these guys buy and sell politicians who give them tax rates. All that you are saying, stop and think what you're saying, you're saying in so many words, these guys are so powerful that in the

midst of massive income and wealth inequality, nothing you could do about it. Because even if you pass something, they're going to evade it or move out of the country or move out of the state. But at it comes a point, you've got to stand up to that. I also wanted to ask about another piece of this. The proposal would establish a federal registry of a federal registry of ownership of assets, requiring wealthy taxpayers to provide an annual valuation of investment accounts, real estate, privately held business. I think that you can in support of raising taxes on the rich or the wealthy and still maybe have some uncomfort with a registry for the federal government of assets? Is that a little big brother? I mean,

how do we get around that question? Well, it's a little big, I must tell you, that when one guy owns more wealth in the bottom 53% of American households, when children in America are hungry today, when the top 1% pay an effective tax rate lower than you pay. So, yeah, look, if you, If you're going to come up with a sensible tax, you need to know what people own. But I would say we're not, I don't know that we have to worry too much about the billionaire class right now. Between you and the, they're doing pretty well. Maybe let's worry about the working class, low-income people. More with Senator Bernie Sanders in a minute.

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Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. We're back. It's Today Explained Saturday, and we're here with Senator Bernie Sanders. I want to turn to AI. You called for a moratorium. on AI data center construction. I spoke with your ally, Rokane, about this, and he disagreed about that point specifically.

I wanted to ask, why do you think the time is now to put a moratorium on data centers? Good, I'll tell you why. I don't think a moratorium is the solution to all the problems. I think it's the right thing to do now, and here's why. What I have been really stunned by is that I go out around the country and I talk to people, and I say, what do you think about AI and robotics?

So you're concerned about it. And I talk to mostly working class audiences. And they say, Bernie, we are really, really concerned. Come back to Capitol Hill, the United States Senate. You know what? Hardly anything is being done about it. No legislation has yet been passed. So the disconnect is five miles wide.

So I think we've got to get moving. This is what I am concerned about. Issue number one, and it gets back, by the way, there's issue of income and wealth inequality. Instead, you know who is pushing? Who's pushing? AI and robotics, you know, the richest people in the world. Who was investing money in data centers?

For sure. Silicon Valley, billionaire class, yes. You got it. Elon Moss. Yes. Zuckerberg, Bezos, Ellison, Alton, Bill Gates. The richest people in the world are investing unbelievable amounts of money to move AI in robotics. So the very first question that we have to ask ourselves, and I'm going to ask it to you. All right, you're ready for this question?

Do you think these guys were investing huge amounts of money in AI robotics, transforming our economy? Are they staying up nights worried about you and your family? No. They are not. All right? So that's the first thing. What do they want? And in my view, they want even more wealth and they want even more power.

All right? And at a time when these guys already have so much wealth and power, when they're buying elections, you know, I worry about that and what it means for our democracy. Issue number two, people disagree because nobody really knows. What will the impact of AI and robotics mean to our economy? Some people say, well, you know, look, we've always had, you have the Industrial Revolution, people with farmers, they work in factories, no big deal. I don't agree with that. I think what you're looking at now is going to move a lot more pervasively and a lot faster than other economic transformations.

And there are some folks out there who basically say, look, within a few years, AI will be able to do a better job at virtually anything that you or I can do that a human being can do. We're looking at folks like Jeff. Bezos, who owns Amazon, who wants to display some 600,000 workers with robots. We're looking right now at entry-level white-collar jobs for kids graduating college disappearing in significant numbers. What does the future bring? Certainly.

What says work is going to be obsolete? What does that mean? I mean, there is unquestioned anxiety from workers. I think there is unquestion uncertainty about what this means from job market or the future. of work. I guess my question is the solution of moratorium, even Roe Conner last week, said he worries that Democrats might get left behind

by a technological revolution that could happen around them. Does something like a moratorium place the party too far outside a technological transition? They should be more actively helping the shape. Well,

you're raising a very profound question. So why, Why don't we go to Elon and say, Elon, what are you going to do for the working class of this country? You're going to make sure that all of our people have a decent standard of everything. How are you going to do that? The point is, this thing is moving so bloody fast. Every day, literally almost every day there's a new development. Yeah, yeah.

So I think the main thing that I think is we've got to slow it down in America. We've got to slow it down in the world. And in a short time, I'm going to be talking to people who are dealing with folks in China, where there are scientists who have equal concerns with the scientists in this country, not only about the economy, but the existential threat of what happens when AI becomes smarter than human beings and whether we'll be able to control them and the bottom line is there are huge, huge issues out there. And Congress is way, way behind in terms of addressing them.

So I don't think a moratorium is the solution to end all. But I think you've got to slow this process down so that democracy and the people can get a handle on it and make sure that AI of which there's some very positive things and robotics work for the American people, not just for Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Have you ever used the LLM, chat, GBT, Claude, one of those? I don't use it on a regular basis, but my office, we have sat down with demonstrations of it, yes. I'm curious, just your reaction to it. You mentioned the possible. You're incredible. Yeah.

Look, just the other day, you know, we try to learn. So I use these things. A guy in my office recently signed a lease for an apartment in Washington. It's a 72-page document. You know, one of these documents where you sign your name, you don't know what you're signing a hundred times. All right. So the guy said, all right, tell me what's in the 72-page lease that I signed. What's positive?

What should I be worried about, right? What's negative? I don't know. In a minute, this coughed up a document, a really nice legal document, said, this is good, this is good. You got to worry about this. You got to worry about this. Interesting. In a minute. All right. I talk to doctors who say, hey, AI can make diagnoses better than I can. Is that good? It's good. So I'm not a Luddite. I'm not against AI and robotics. But I want them to serve people, not just make billionaires even richer. Fair. The last question I wanted to ask was when you think about policies that are most important, looking ahead to the next Democratic nominee, you're someone who has shaped the party, certainly over the last two presidential elections, going back even further. I imagine your top priority, maybe Medicare for all. But I wanted to know, is there another other two policies that before we know the person, before we know the personality, you want that next nominee to support? I said it's not, it's not a issue. It is addressing the unprecedented crises that we face from Trump, but it goes even deeper than Trump. So what are we got to do? First of all, we have to figure out how we remain in democracy. How's that? And it's not just Donald Trump, who is an authoritarian and is undermining democracy. It is money in politics. politics. You talked about AI, right? You know why there's no regulation of AI right now? It is because the AI industry is prepared and is spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

You want to run for Congress and you want to stand up and say, I have real concerns about AI. They will pour millions of dollars against you, right? You've got to deal with Citizens United and creating a democratic society. It's not only getting money out of politics you need, in my view, public funding of elections. So maintenance of democracy is importance. Dealing with Trump's authoritarianism enormously. And you've got to deal with this issue of oligarchy. The issue we talked about previously. Are you content with a handful of billionaires having that ownership, so much power, so much wealth? You got to deal with that. In terms of the needs of the American people, why are we the only major country not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right?

That takes you to Medicare for all. You've got to deal with AI and its impact. So there are enormous issues that are out there. This is a very difficult and unprecedented moment in American history. And I think the elected officials in many ways are far behind where the American people are in terms of their wanting action to protect them and not just the 1%. Why does that gap so exist? I mean, you mentioned a couple times how you've educated yourself on things like these

new tech models, but you still feel that Washington is far behind. On the number of these issues, even the question of interest in money and politics and its influence, I hear it all across the country. I'm sure you hear it all across the country. What is that gap, then, even if we think just about the Democratic Party and making that focus a clear part of their message? Well, if you would jump up and say, you know, I think Bernie had a good idea. I think we need a tax on wealth. Well, what you will find is the next day that one or another super PAC says, oh, really, that's what you think? Well, we're going to spend $50 million to defeat you. So taking on the moneyed interests when they have so much wealth and power is not easy. And that is, I think,

the most fundamental reason why Congress ignores the needs of the working class of this country. Self-interest. Self-interest, yes. Senator Sanders, we thank you for your time, and we appreciate you joining us. Okay, well, thanks for having me. Take care. Yeah, you too. Bye-bye. That was Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. This episode was produced by Jesse Ash.

It was edited by Today Explain Executive Producer Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Andrea Lopez Cruzado, and mixed by Shannon Mahoney. Thanks as always to our supervising engineer, David Tadashore, and Christina Valis, our head of video. Every Saturday will be in your video and audio feeds with an interesting interview in politics or culture. You can also watch the Saturday interviews this week and every week on the Vox YouTube channel. Subscribe at YouTube.com slash Vox.