EVERY SPOKEN WORD
130 min read · 26,474 words- 0:00 – 15:00
And we're live. Hello,…
- JRJoe Rogan
And we're live. Hello, Bernie.
- BSBernie Sanders
How are you, Joe?
- JRJoe Rogan
Wonderful. Pleasure to meet you.
- BSBernie Sanders
Nice to meet you.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's exciting to have you here, man. And it's, uh, obviously an, an exciting time for you. Um, you know, presidential campaign is up in full swing. Do you, uh, do you get frustrated by the, the time constraints of the debates?
- BSBernie Sanders
Uh, absolutely. It's... You shouldn't even call them a debate. Uh, what they are is a, um, you know, reality TV show in which you have to come up with a sound bite and all that stuff. And it's the meaning, it's the meaning to the candidates and it's the meaning to the American people. You can't explain the complexity of healthcare in America in 45 seconds. Nobody can.
- JRJoe Rogan
But, uh, why is still done that way? Have you tried to... Let's pull this thing. Like, bring it right there. There you go.
- BSBernie Sanders
Um, you know, I think the DNC is in a difficult position. They have 20-plus candidates and they want to give everybody a fair shot, which is, is the right thing to do. Uh, and then if you're gonna have 10 candidates up on the stage, what do you do? But there are other ways that we've got to do it, because the issues facing this country are so enormous and in some cases, so complicated, nobody in the world can honestly explain them in 45 seconds. And then that, what encourages people to do is to come up with sound bites or do absurd things. So if I yelled and scream on the show, I took my clothes off, uh, we get a lot of publicity, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBernie Sanders
But if you give a thoughtful answer to a complicated question, it's not so sexy for the media.
- JRJoe Rogan
But you don't even have a chance to give a thoughtful answer. Like, uh, Tulsi Gabbard went after Kamala Harris, and then Kamala Harris had about 12 seconds to reply to it.
- BSBernie Sanders
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was so ridiculous. To, to, to have something that's such an important issue, like, did you or did you not put all those people in jail for marijuana? Did you laugh about it? Did this happen? Did that happen? All these different things. Was, was evidence withheld?
- BSBernie Sanders
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a... They, these are long conversations.
- BSBernie Sanders
Well, but it takes us to another issue, and that as a nation, we do a pretty bad job in analyzing and discussing the serious issues facing our country. And I, I hold the media to some degree responsible for that. You know, other countries, what they do is say, "Joe, you want to run for president? I'll tell you what, whether your party in the general election, we're going to give you a certain amount of time, hours, on television. And you use those hours any way you want. You want a 15-minute discourse?" You remember Ross Perot?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBernie Sanders
And people used to laugh at Ross Perot, because he used to get up there with a chart and all this stuff. And, and the media made fun of him. But in fact, he tried in his own way to explain his point of view to the American people. And we need serious discussion on, on serious issues.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, he had the op... Because he was so rich, he had the ability to buy airtime on network television, which is pretty unprecedented. He just b- bought a chunk of airtime and then pled his case.
- BSBernie Sanders
But you know what goes on in other countries? You don't have to buy that time. What the obligation is, if you are a network, you're going to make that time free and available to candidates.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think that that's something that could be viable in America? I mean, could, could you convince CBS and NBC and ABC to go along with something like that?
- BSBernie Sanders
No. You couldn't convince them.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- BSBernie Sanders
You'd have to pass legislation to make that happen.
- JRJoe Rogan
But everyone's online today. Th- I mean, the entire country is essentially getting email and Facebook and all that jazz. Like, why bother doing it in this particular medium that has an inherent time constraint?
- BSBernie Sanders
Well, you're right. I mean, uh, the, the internet has revolutionized politics, uh, and in many ways, good ways. We use our social media, our email list, which is very large. We... Every day we're sending out stuff, and other candidates are doing it the same way. But television still has a very important role to be playing.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm sure it does, but I mean, the ability to discuss things in, in long form, like you can do online, like you can do right here, right now.
- BSBernie Sanders
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You can't get that on television.
- BSBernie Sanders
Well, you could. I mean, if you had...
- 15:00 – 30:00
So how would that…
- BSBernie Sanders
people standing up and saying to their employers, "We're not gonna be treated like animals anymore. You can't hire and fire us. You can't work us, you know, 15 hours a day. We, we, we deserve dignity." And you think about the growth of the labor movement of millions of people beginning to stand together and fight. You think about the civil rights movement, you know, and it wasn't just Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was, again, millions of African-Americans and their white allies saying, "We're gonna end segregation and racism in this country." Think about the women's movement. 100 years ago, women in America didn't even have the right to vote. Think about the gay rights movement. Think about the environment law. The only way that change takes place is when ordinary people come together and stand up and fight and say that the status quo is not working. And that's what I believe and that's what we're trying to do. So what, the, the message of our campaign is, it's us, not me, 'cause I can't do it alone. Let me be very honest with you. If I were elected president tomorrow, I can't do the things that I would like to do that I'm campaigning on unless millions of people were working with me to tell the corporate elite that they cannot get it all.
- JRJoe Rogan
So how would that be implemented? Let's say you become president. You gonna become president? What do you think?
- BSBernie Sanders
I think we got a shot at it.
- JRJoe Rogan
We got a shot. All right. President Bernie, what do you do? You get in there. What do you do?
- BSBernie Sanders
Okay. First of all, you make a very clear, you make it clear to the American people what your agenda is. And I appreciate the opportunity to talk about an agenda in, in more than 12 seconds. Uh, what does that mean? All right. We're gonna fight for Medicare for all. We're gonna raise the minimum wage to a living wage. We are gonna deal with education in a profound w- yes, a profound way 'cause I worry about what's going on in education today. Everybody knows that the ages of zero through four are the most important years for human intellectual and emotional development, right? Every psychologist will tell you that. And yet, we have a totally dysfunctional early childhood system. We pay, we pay our childcare workers s- starvation wages. Yet working class families cannot find affordable quality childcare. You got our public school systems all around this country, and, and many of them really being challenged right now. Teachers are underpaid. Teachers are working two or three jobs. You got kids who can't afford to go to college. And here's something that is just unbelievable. Kids who have gone to college leaving school with $50,000, $100,000 in debt. Unbelievable. These are issues that we have to deal with, and I will deal with them. And, uh, we are gonna substantially improve in the quality of education in America. We're gonna cancel student debt by imposing a tax on Wall Street speculation. All right? So you gotta deal with education. You gotta deal with climate change. You know? The truth is that Donald Trump is dead wrong. Uh, climate change is not a hoax. It is a very, very dangerous reality for our country and the rest of the world. Scientists tell us we have less than 12 years to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel or there will be irreparable damage. All right? So those are... And healthcare, of course, for all. So those are some of the major issues, criminal justice, immigration reform. You lay it on the table and you say, "These are the issues that we are gonna focus on."... and you rally the American people around those issues. And you tell people like Mitch McConnell, who represents a very poor state in Kentucky that, "Mitch, if you are going to oppose raising that minimum wage to at least 15 bucks an hour, I will be in Kentucky as president of the United States, and we're gonna have a rally. Because you're gonna have to stop representing..." And I hope, by the way, that Mitch McConnell is not the leader. I hope the Democrats can gain control over the Senate. But if he is, we'll put enormous pressure on him to do what the people want. Every idea, Joe... Here's the bottom line on this thing. Every idea that I've just talked to you about is supported by a majority of the American people. These are not radical ideas.
- JRJoe Rogan
Let's, let's take these one step at a time, 'cause you mentioned a lot of important things there. Let's go with the minimum wage thing. Now the argument that I've heard about the minimum wage being raised to $15 an hour is that they're entry-level positions for high school kids, for people that are just getting their feet wet in the marketplace. They're learning how to work, they're learn- they're, they're making some money after school, that they, that if you charge or, uh, b- if businesses have to pay $15 an hour to people like that, to, to entry-level people, that they won't be able to stay open.
- BSBernie Sanders
Well, first of all, they will be competing against... You know, if you're a business and I'm a business and both of us have to raise our wages at the same level, we both have the same burden. So it's, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBernie Sanders
... spread across. That is what my conservative, uh, colleagues will tell you. The truth is, I don't have the numbers right in front of me, that while it certainly is true that i- i- young people do work at McDonald's and the minimum wage jobs, uh, a significant and majority of the workers are not kids. They are often, and I've met them at McDonald's, uh, they are workers, uh, who have children themselves. Uh, when we, we worked very hard to raise the minimum wage at Amazon, um, and at Disney. We put pressure on both of those companies, and they did the right thing. And when you talk to the people at Amazon who got that raise, these are not kids. These are people in their 30s. These are, uh, these are ordinary adults who cannot make it on 12 or 13 bucks an hour. So I think the argument that, "Oh, they're all kids," uh, is not really, uh, quite accurate.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, not even that all their, they're all kids, but that if they are kids, what would you think about making a minimum wage for someone who's under 18 that's different from a minimum wage of someone who's a legal adult?
- BSBernie Sanders
I'm not, I'm not for that. Uh, I think we do it and, and... Look, many of these young people, you know, have their own needs. I just talked to a young woman, um, uh, last night, uh, who is working, going to college, working full-time, trying to take care of her family as well. So I think... Look, the minimum wage has not been raised in 10 years. It is now $7.25 an hour, which is clearly unacceptable. Um, the cost of housing, California, all over this country, is rising fairly rapidly. People can't afford healthcare. (clears throat) They can't afford college. I don't think it's asking our employers too much to pay at least $15 an hour minimum wage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, uh, I'm glad you brought up Amazon, 'cause one of th- one of the things that always freaks me out is when I find out that enormous corporations that make billions of dollars have tax loopholes where they literally pay no money. How is that possible, and how do you stop that?
- BSBernie Sanders
Well, it's the same thing as the drug companies. How is it possible that we pay 10 times more for insulin in this country (clears throat) and for other drugs than the one i- in Canada or, or, or countries around the world? (clears throat) And the answer is, it's power. So what is, what is the goal of major corporations in America? It's to be deregulated as much as possible, so in some cases, they can pollute our water, our air, our environment. It's also not to pay any taxes. (clears throat) Trump campaign, as you'll recall, he said, "My tax plan is not gonna benefit the wealthy. It's gonna benefit working people." Well, turns out over 10 years, 83% of the benefit at the end of 10 years goes to the top 1%. That's what these guys... Now, I remember, I'm the, called the ranking member on the Budget Committee in the Senate, and some guy came forward representing, I don't know, one of the big business organizations. Uh, and this is their agenda. Their agenda was to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and to do away with all corporate taxes. So what you have right now, that's, that's what greed is about. They want it all. So as you indicated, you have a company like Amazon owned by Jeff Bezos, who happens to be the wealthiest guy in America, worth about 150 billion. Amazon paid zero in federal income taxes. And, and it's not just them. Dozens of corporations paid nothing or very, very little. And on top of all of that, you got these guys able to stash all over the world (clears throat) trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars, in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, in Luxembourg, and other tax havens. That is insane, and that has gotta end. (clears throat)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. How is it legal to do that? Why is it legal?
- BSBernie Sanders
Joe, it is legal-
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's safe there.
- BSBernie Sanders
... because they make the laws.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBernie Sanders
All right? You know, uh, uh, uh, uh, that is what here you're touching now on the heart and soul of the tragedy of American politics. How does it happen that on issue after issue, the American people, the working class of this country want something, nobody pays any attention to it, but billionaires want something, and it gets done? And that has to do with the corrupt political system. So right now, if you are, uh, the Koch brothers or some multi-billionaire, you say to the leadership of the Republican Party and in some cases to the Democratic Party, "Hey, guess what? We're prepared to put hundreds of millions of dollars into your campaign, hundreds of millions of dollars coming from one or two people. And here is my agenda. I want tax breaks. I want a trade system which will enable me to shut down in this country and go to China or Mexico and pay people there two bucks an hour. I wanna be able to do more pollution 'cause I don't, I don't like all of this, you know, money I have to spend preventing, uh, pollution of the air or the water. That's what I want you to do. And by the way, I'm worried about the deficit, so you may as well cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid." How many Americans actually believe-... that we should give tax breaks to billionaires and cut social security, Medicare, and Medicaid? Very few. That is pres- talk to Mitch McConnell. Get Mitch on the show, that is exactly what he believes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's ridiculous, right? And it seems that if you just took away those tax breaks, the enormous amount of money that would come from those corporations having to pay their fair share would take care of a lot of the expenses of all these things that you're proposing.
- BSBernie Sanders
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
How, uh, like, okay, let's talk about the education because, uh, the idea of free education is a wonderful thing for people. Um, I mean, uh, the idea that you get out of college and you're in debt in, in an insane amount that you might have 10, 20 years where you have to pay it back. And, and I know many people that are in that situation.
- BSBernie Sanders
Joe, there are people who are getting their social security checks garnished right now. It's not 10 or 20 years. In some cases, it's literally a lifetime.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, a lot of that is, I mean, it's gotta, in some way be preventable by what we're talking about here.
- BSBernie Sanders
Absolutely. Uh, and there-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that how you would pay for it? I mean, how would you-
- BSBernie Sanders
I'll tell you exactly how I would pay for it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- BSBernie Sanders
Okay? And we pay for... Every idea that we have, we pay for. And we pay for it by understanding that today we have massive levels of income and wealth and equality. And we have many cases, the wealthy and large corporations paying nothing or very little in taxes. Here is the issue in terms of education. 40, 50 years ago, you were an average American working class person, you graduated high school, especially if there was a union around, you can go out and get a job and make it into the middle class. You could own your own home, you could send your kids to school. You lived a pretty good life, made it in the middle class. 40 or 50 years later, there's an explosion of technology, there's a growth in unfettered free trade, and it is clear now that most people, to make it into the middle class, are gonna need a higher education. That's college or maybe it's technical training in order to become a skilled worker. It is insane to me to deny working class people and lower income people the opportunity to get that education because the cost of college has soared. So, all that I say is that 100 plus years ago, the American people said that we should have free public education. I went to a public school. My parents didn't pay a nickel. Went to kindergarten and went through the 12th grade, pretty good education in Brooklyn, New York. All that I'm saying is the world has changed, and a high school degree is not good enough anymore. So, expand that concept through college. Now, guess what? 50 years ago, do you know how much the University of California, a very great university cost in terms of tuition?
- JRJoe Rogan
How much?
- 30:00 – 45:00
When you say small,…
- BSBernie Sanders
enough money. It's a very small tax. It exists-
- JRJoe Rogan
When you say small, how much?
- BSBernie Sanders
Uh, it depends on, on the nature of the transaction, but it's less than one-half of 1%.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- BSBernie Sanders
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that would cover-
- BSBernie Sanders
But because the- Yeah, because the amount of stocks being sold-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBernie Sanders
... bought and sold. And this is not, again, a new idea. It's, it's being, uh, done in countries all over the world.
- JRJoe Rogan
What about, th- here, here's one of the darkest things about student loans is that i- if, if you go bankrupt, it doesn't matter. You still owe that. And that, that's kinda crazy. I mean, if you have like, a serious medical issue, if you're, you're held up, wh- whatever, whatever happens to you that's awful, you go bankrupt, most of those things are resolved, but not student loans.
- BSBernie Sanders
Right. Uh, I mean, again, this talks to the-... to the ... And that has to do with bankruptcy law, which was passed against my vote. Uh, and while you're on bankruptcy, and I sh- I should have mentioned this before, when you talk about the healthcare system, a half a million Americans every single year go bankrupt because of medical bills that they can't pay. But you're right, with student... Now I talked to this guy in Nevada. I'll never forget it. Guy says, "Bernie, you know, I'm owing my s..." The guy's in his 50s. And he said, "You know, I, I, I've been paying off my student debt for years. I'm going nowhere because the interest rates are high, and I fear very much, which is the case, that they will start garnishing, taking away my Social Security checks, taking money away from me." So people are carrying this burden. The result is that they can't, in many cases, get married and have kids. They certainly can't buy a home. They can't buy a car. They're really crushed by this debt. And what was their crime? What did they do? They tried to get a higher education. I think that's pretty crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
And a lot of them, when they do this higher education, they're 18 years old. Imagine making a decision when your brain isn't even fully formed-
- BSBernie Sanders
You-
- JRJoe Rogan
... that's gonna affect you for the rest of your life.
- BSBernie Sanders
You got it ex- exactly right. And you talk to these kids, say, "Well, how much debt do you owe? Um, what kind of interest rates you're paying?" "Gee, I really don't know. They just told me to sign up." Yeah. It's all right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, right now, we are a week ... um, not even a week out, just a few days away from two mass shootings in a row. And whenever these things happen, there's all these people that want action, but nobody knows exactly what to do. There's calls for gun control, there's calls for mental health reform, there's calls for ... I mean, what, if anything, can be done to stop these things from happening, and how ... H- have you sat down and tried to come up with some sort of a solution, and is there a solution?
- BSBernie Sanders
Look, I would be lying to you if I told you I had a magical answer. Um, I don't. And this is such a h- horrific situation. I ... You know, we were in, um ... You know, we, we had a town meeting, uh, we were in Nevada actually, in Las Vegas, when El Paso happened. And, uh, we did a town meeting and I said, "Let's take a moment of silence to remember the victims and pray for the survivors." Literally the next day, in another part of Las Vegas, I had to do it again. And I said, "I can't believe that just yesterday we did this and I have to do it again." This is ... I, I don't know what the words ... You know, my friend Beto O'Rourke would say it gets ... Y- you don't know what words ... What, what can you say? It happens again and again. Who can imagine some lunatic walking into a school or a mall or just on a nightclub area and taking out an assault weapon and shooting down people? And that we almost become to accept this as a normal part of American life is, is incredible. Is, is, is, is, is just totally demoralizing. All right, so here's what I think. There's no magical answer, and ... But let me tell you what I think. First of all, this is the reality. The reality is that today, as we speak, there are approximately 400 million guns in America today. We have more guns than we have people. We have between five to 10 million assault weapons, and an assault weapon, as you know, is a military-style weapon designed to kill human beings kind of rapidly. So that's ... And then on top of that, we have, again, nothing to be proud of, but, you know, we have a number of mentally unstable people, people who, for whatever reason, are walking the streets, they're suicidal, they're homicidal. That's the mix that we have. I think the answer is, and I'm not the guy to invent all these ideas, but here's some of what we have to do. First of all, if you want to own a gun in America, you have got to do ... We have got to know that you are a stable person, and that means that we need to expand, uh, e- e- e- e- e- the background checks that currently exist. Okay, so we got to know, did you beat up your wife? Have you committed crimes? Uh, et cetera, et cetera. What is the state of your mental health? Uh, number two, we gotta make that universal. Number two, right now, that ... there is a background check if you walk into a gun show ... into, into a gun shop, but you can buy guns in various states at a gun show, and you don't have to do any of that. So if you and I go to a gun show, you sell me a gun, I don't have to ... And, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBernie Sanders
You, I don't have to do that. Third of all, I can today legally walk into a gun show, uh, pass the background check, and buy a dozen guns, walk out and sell them to criminal elements who will use them for bad things. So I think those are issues, um, that most Americans believe we have got to deal with, and we can. Fourthly, I happen to believe, and I've believed this for 30 years, that we should not be selling or distributing assault weapons in this country. Uh, they are weapons of mass destruction in a sense. They kill people rapidly as we saw in ... And thank God, by the way, when we talk about both Dayton and El Paso, thank God cops were there very, very quickly and did an incredible job. 'Cause if that guy had walked into the nightclub, there could have been dozens and dozens more people killed in, in, in ... within a few minutes' time. Um, I happen to believe, A, that we should not be selling or distributing an assault weapons in this country. That's my view, period. Uh, so I believe in a ban on assault weapons, and I think we have got to begin thinking about when we have five to 10 million assault weapons, which is more than the US military has, we have to think about a strong licensing procedure in terms of who owns these assault weapons. So that's some of, uh, what I think. And there are many other things, but those are some of the ideas that are out there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, the legal gun owners who are law-abiding citizens, who would never in a million years think about going around shooting people, but they love guns, they hear this kind of stuff about, like, banning assault...... rifles, banning assault weapons. They don't even like the term assault weapons, right? They like to refer to them as their individual names or whatever they are. These people feel like this is an inexorable part of being an American, that you should be able to own a gun. It's written into our Bill of Rights. It's written into our... the, the, the way we, the way this country was founded. It's the Second Amendment. What do you say to those people that don't, that don't want to give up their guns, but they wouldn't do... and they want to protect themselves. They feel like these guns are viable options to protect themselves from criminals.
- BSBernie Sanders
I understand that. And Joe, as you may know, I'm a senator from the state of Vermont, and the state of Vermont is one of the most rural states in America. Every farm, there are thousands and thousands of people who are out in the woods hunting. And it's something that's part of our tradition. I believe in it, and I believe in the Second Amendment. But all that I ask of the gun owners, and you're absolutely right, 99.9% of gun owners would never in a million, billion years think of doing these horrible things.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBernie Sanders
But in the moment that we are living in, uh, I think that we're all going to have to make, you know, some concessions to the reality of what is going on, and that is that there is a small number of, call them what you want, depraved people who are prepared to do that. You know, in Australia, you remember that terrible, uh... New Zealand, I'm sorry, the, the terrible shooting at, at the mosque, and they moved pretty quickly, uh, in an aggressive way. So, you know, I wish I can say in, in, in the best of all possible worlds, yeah, you know, you can own any weapon you want and so forth and so on. We're not living in the best of all possible worlds. We're living in a world where we're shocked every day by horror, so...
- JRJoe Rogan
I, I agree we are living in a terrible situation. I mean, there's hundreds of mass shootings a year now, which is insane, and if you look at the number in comparison to the rest of the world, it's crazy. Like a big one in another country is like three mass shootings in a year. We had more than 270.
- BSBernie Sanders
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, it's crazy. But how would you implement something like this?
- BSBernie Sanders
Well, the idea of banning assault weapons has been done in 19, uh, 94. We banned assault weapons, uh, I believe, I believe it was for ten years. Uh, that ban was undone by a Republican, uh, majority. Uh, and it didn't... you know, I'm not suggesting, by the way, that anything here, that if we banned assault weapons tomorrow, that it would radically change everything, but it... we have got to do the best that we can do. And again, I preface my remarks by telling you, I don't have a magical solution. You got hundreds of millions of guns out there. You have people who should not be owning these guns, who get set off by God knows what, and, and do terrible things. All we can do is the best that we could do, but to say we can't do anything, I think is a real disservice to the American. Now, I'll tell you something else that bothers me, you know, in addition to the horror of seeing people lying on the street dead, is what this is doing to the children of this country, and I think we underestimate that. I have seven grandchildren, and, and for them and for kids all over this country, you're going to see the fall is coming, kids coming back to school. You're going to see in schools all over America drills. "All right, this is what you do if somebody walks into the school." "All right, you're going to hide under here, you go over there." Kids... I, I... A couple of months ago, I was in Iowa. This guy is about 6-foot-2, big guy, probably a football player, and he says, "Senator Sanders, I got to tell you that the young people in my school are increasingly frightened, terrified about what could happen in the school." Think about what this, the trauma, the trauma of, of what this gun violence is doing. So I think we're all... as, as Americans, there ain't no easy answers here, right? We're all going to have to come together and, and figure this one out and, and do the best that we can.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, would that mean forcibly removing these guns from people's homes? I mean, how would-
- BSBernie Sanders
I don't think you're going to have the FBI knocking on somebody's doors and taking their... That's not what we do in America. You don't come-
- JRJoe Rogan
But if we have 400 million guns already out there-
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Yes. …
- BSBernie Sanders
that we are over-medicating kids in schools. You know, we have this, uh, deficit, d- deficient issue, you know, kids are running around and they're active. You know, when I was a kid, people used to run around and they were active, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBernie Sanders
It wasn't, they weren't drugged up. So I worry about that whole business. But your point is well taken. I think we need to study this issue and make sure that these drugs, in fact, are not causing kinds of reactions that we will regret later.
- JRJoe Rogan
N- now on the subject of drugs, marijuana is obviously a big issue in this country, and we've seen-
- BSBernie Sanders
(clears throat)
- JRJoe Rogan
... many states make it recreational, including this one. Uh, what do you think could be done and what should be done to have this across the bo- especially federally? You know, um, there's a guy that I have on the podcast coming up soon, his name's John Norris, and he wrote a book on the cartels growing marijuana illegally all over this country and selling it, especially particularly in California now, because it's a misdemeanor, because it's legal recreationally, and selling it with all sorts of horrible pesticides on it. All sorts of, like very, in fact deadly chemicals. All of this because it's not federally legal, because we can't have sanctioned, licensed companies doing an ethical job of growing something that any responsible, law-abiding person should be able to consume.
- BSBernie Sanders
Okay. Um, let me say this. When I ran for president for the Democratic nomination in 2016, I talked about a broken criminal justice system, which ends up having, in the United States, more people in jail than any other country. We have more people in jail than China does, which is a Communist, authoritarian country. And what I called for then and I call for now is, uh, the legalization of marijuana in America. Right now, you have a federal law, it's called the Controlled Substance Act. Here's heroin, here is marijuana, they're at the same level. That is insane. Heroin is a killer drug. You can argue the pluses and minuses of marijuana, but marijuana ain't heroin. So we have to end that, and that's what I will do. As President of the United States, I believe we can do that through executive order, and I will do that. Second of all, what we have now is a number of states, and I'm very proud, I talked about during 2016 what seemed kinda radical, the need to legalize and decriminalize marijuana. A very radical idea four years ago. It is spreading all over the country. And by the way, it blows my mind to drive through Nevada or I think here even in California, now you'll see signs, "Corporations, buy our marijuana."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBernie Sanders
And four years ago, people were getting arrested-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBernie Sanders
... for doing that. Right? Their lives being destroyed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, particularly in Nevada. There was life sentences given out in the '70s.
- BSBernie Sanders
Can you believe that?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBernie Sanders
And now you have corporations selling the damn product that people went to jail for. Um, so I, I think ultimately, you know, we've got to legalize, uh, marijuana. And what's good news, in a sense, is some communities, some cities are expunging the records. So if you were arrested, uh, have a criminal record for selling marijuana, that is being expunged and that is the right thing to do. You know, we can argue about the pluses and minuses. I'm not a great fan of, of drugs. Other people, you know, I t- smoked marijuana a couple of times. Didn't do much for me. Other people, I guess, have different impacts.
- JRJoe Rogan
Just a couple times?
- BSBernie Sanders
That's right, true.
- JRJoe Rogan
It didn't do much for you?
- BSBernie Sanders
Yeah, it made me cough.
- JRJoe Rogan
Where were you getting it?
- BSBernie Sanders
(laughs) I don't know. It was in Vermont, Northern Vermont.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, that's the problem.
- BSBernie Sanders
Maybe, yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You gotta get it from here. It'll do something for you.
- BSBernie Sanders
Well, it made me cough a whole lot, all right.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BSBernie Sanders
But I gather other people have had different experiences, correct?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, for sure. Yeah.
- BSBernie Sanders
Yeah. Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
I certainly have. Um, th- the other problem is of, of course with illegal drugs comes y- you get this horrible cycle, particularly in, uh, inner cities, where you have people that are incarcerated for illegal drugs. Illegal drugs seem to be the only way out. The hard drugs, when we're talking about cocaine and all these other drugs. How, how does one stop that? And would you ever consider legalizing all drugs, or decriminalizing-
- 1:00:00 – 1:07:41
Now, w- we're getting…
- BSBernie Sanders
for workers and not just the, the billionaire class.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, w- we're getting to the end of your hour here. So, climate change is obviously an enormous issue for our country and for the world. What, what could be done, and what do you think you can do as president that can somehow or another slow down this, this process?
- BSBernie Sanders
Well, first of all, we have to have a president who, unlike Trump, uh, believes in science, and I do. And what the scientists are telling us, as I mentioned earlier, is that we have fewer than 12 years to transform our energy system, or else there will be irreparable damage done, not only to our country, but to the world. Now, climate change is not just an American issue. So, we could do tomorrow, do all the right things, but if China and Russia and India and the rest of... Brazil and Africa does not do the right thing, you know, we're not gonna make the progress we need. So, here is what we have to do, in my view. Number one, we have to tell the fossil fuel industry that their short-term profits, and they make a whole lot of money, their short-term profits are not more important than the future of this planet. I don't think that's a hard sell to make. You cannot keep producing a product which is destroying the planet in the United States and around the world.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, by saying that, you're saying you would have to move, we would have to move consciously away-
- BSBernie Sanders
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
... from fossil fuels.
- BSBernie Sanders
No ifs-
- JRJoe Rogan
So-
- BSBernie Sanders
... buts, and maybes.
- JRJoe Rogan
And if we do that, how do you tell the fossil fuel companies? Do you tell them, "You can't sell fossil fuels anymore?"
- BSBernie Sanders
Yeah. There are a variety of ways to do that, but that is the bottom line. And, and by the way, in the midst of that, we do what we call is a, um, a just transition.The guy out on the oil rig today simply wants to feed his family. And the coal miners today want to feed their families. And we're not going to leave them. I'm a pro-worker. Uh, I have probably the strongest pro-worker record of any member of the Congress, so it is not my intention to throw these guys out on the ... and women, out on the street and ignore the pain that they will go through. We are proposing billions of dollars to rebuild those communities and make sure that those guys, and women, get new jobs. So we're not just discarding people into fossil fuel industry. But ultimately, the product that they are producing, which is now carbon emissions, is destroying the planet. So we have to move away from fossil fuel in a very bold way into energy efficiency. Right now, in my own state of Vermont and all over this country, there are buildings which are incredibly wasteful. We don't have the windows, we don't have the insulation, we don't have the roofing, the doors that we need to keep the buildings warm in the winter and cool, uh, in, uh, the summer. And we can create just a, an incredible number of jobs just retrofitting our buildings. Second of all, uh, we need to move very aggressively, uh, to sustainable energies like wind and solar. In California, you're doing a good job with wind. Iowa's doing a good job. Texas, doing a good job. We gotta do much more. Solar, there is incredible potential out there. Price of solar has dropped in recent years, and we have got to not only transform the energy system in our own country, we gotta lead the world in working with Russia and, and China, because in this issue, we are in it together. And here's my dream, and maybe a ... this (laughs) may be a utopian dream. The world right now is spending a trillion and a half dollars on weapons of destruction designed to kill each other, and maybe, just maybe, if we had a kind of leader, and I hope to be that leader, who says to the world, "Instead of spending a trillion and a half dollars killing each other, maybe we use those resources to transform the global energy system and save the planet for our kids and our grandchildren." That's the goal that I have.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, these, these ideas sound great, but in the competitive environment of global politics, how would you convince Russia or China or any of these countries to do something that would put them in some sort of a competitive disadvantage?
- BSBernie Sanders
Well, uh, uh, and the answer is, Joe, if we do not do that, in 50, 100 years, everybody's gonna be-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBernie Sanders
... in a terrible disadvantage. And, and look, I'm not ... You know, I'm saying ... You know, I'm not telling you that tomorrow it's gonna happen, but you gotta make the case. These people-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBernie Sanders
... you know, Putin is a dictator. I dislike him intensely. You know, Xi in China, very authoritarian, so forth and so on, but they're not crazy people. And presumably, they have concern about their kids and their grandchildren. This is a planet under siege. You know, I don't wanna become a science fiction ... You've all seen the movies, the media, racing toward Earth. We're gonna blow up the Earth. What do we do? Well, we gotta get together. This is, in a sense, what that is about. You know what I think about? In 1941, uh, after Pearl Harbor, all right, we were faced with a war in the East, with China, a war in the West, in Europe, with Hitler. Within two years, the United States had transformed its economy to address and win the war, basically in two or three years, by re-industrializing America. We can do it. We can lead the world. That's what we have to do.
- JRJoe Rogan
So in your eyes, we have to look at the economy almost as if the same kind of threat, or excuse me, the environment, as if it's the same kind of threat as Nazi Germany-
- BSBernie Sanders
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and act together?
- BSBernie Sanders
Uh, look, if you asked the Defense Department, you asked the CIA, you asked the defense people all over the world, "Tell us what the great national security threat is," you know what it is? It is climate change.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a lot of people, though, that are skeptical of this. How would you convince them? I mean, this is a, a big part of the problem, right? There's a-
- BSBernie Sanders
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... there's a narrative that you hear from a lot of people that, "Oh, you know, climate change is not a proven science, and climate change is a hoax." And I mean, this is something that's repeated over and over again, and I'm, I'm sure some of it has to do with lobbyists, and some of it has to do with merchants of doubt that go out there and seed the world with disinformation to try to increase their profits and-
- BSBernie Sanders
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... continue the practices that they're currently enjoying.
- BSBernie Sanders
You know, Joe, when I'm thinking back, and I don't know if all of you listeners (laughs) can remember this 'cause I'm older than most, but I can remember tobacco ads, cigarette ads on television. Remember that?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBernie Sanders
Doc, the guy dressed-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
Episode duration: 1:07:41
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