CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Bernie Sanders

Interview

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SCITTO: Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal today had a tweet that speaks to the shutdown but also the perceptions of larger troubles happening now at the White House.

I'm quoting now: Presidential free fall. Riding Amtrak back to the Senate vote, the only firm track seemed to be the ones under the train. Bipartisan leadership must restore rational governing abandoned by an impetuous, petulant chief executive.

Joining us now, one of Senator Richard Blumenthal's distinguished colleagues, former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, independent, of course, from the state of Vermont.

Senator Sanders, thanks for taking the time tonight.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: My pleasure.

SCIUTTO: You've certainly heard the president. You've certainly heard Republican leaders say tonight that this budget crisis is now on everyone's shoulders, owned by Republicans, Democrats, the president. I imagine you disagree with that.

Who do you believe bears responsibility?

SANDERS: Well, you just had it right on your program a few moments ago, where the president said, I take responsibility for the shutdown. You got the Democrat -- you got the Republicans running the Senate, Republicans running the House, president says he wants a shutdown, I think the American people are clear about who caused the shutdown.

The one point that you're very comprehensive analysis of where we are missed is that two days ago, seems like two years ago, but two days ago, unanimously, the United States Senate reached an agreement to make sure the government did not shut down and extend the process into February. And then what happened is, unfortunately, President Trump watched television, he saw something on Fox TV, heard something from Rush Limbaugh and he changed his mind and sadly, really sadly, the entire Republican congressional caucus in the House and the Senate kind of caved in to him. And it is a heck of a way to run a government when you have a

president who sees something on television, tweets out his view, and you have both the Republican bodies in the House and the Senate cave in to that.

SCIUTTO: So the figure, of course, in that that measure that was passed unanimously as you said the Senate was $1.6 billion. Tonight from the Democrats' perspective, are you or other Democrats willing to give any ground on that figure, go any higher?

SANDERS: Look, I think that the wall is an absurd idea. I think it's a waste of money. I think it just fans Trump's illusions and no, I'm not going to support $5 billion or money for a wall.

Everybody -- and I think Trump lies on this as well as lying on almost everything else, he lies when he suggests that Democrats or progressives are not concerned about border security. Of course, we are. Everybody is concerned about border security.

But if you want to do border security intelligently and cost- effectively, you don't do it with a wall. There are much more, much better approaches than that.

[20:10:00] SCIUTTO: I'm sure you saw the president's tweet tonight going after this slats model, not a wall, he called it a steel slat barrier. Here's the picture there looks almost medieval, with the pikes on the top there. Does that make any difference to you or other Democrats that do not have a wall, to have a fence in effect?

SANDERS: Look, Jim, we have an infrastructure in this country, our roads, our bridges, our water systems which are crumbling. We have veterans who were sleeping out on the street right now, we have kids who cannot afford to go to college. We have a lot of needs in this country and spending $5 billion on a wall is not to leave one of our priorities. And we've got to get our priorities right and take care of working families in this country and not just Trump solutions.

SCIUTTO: What do you say to the folks who say that Democrats -- really they sense the president being weak here, he's about to lose one chamber of Congress to Democrats, knows the time is waning, but the Democrats see an opportunity simply to stick it to the president here?

SANDERS: No, I don't think it's a question that I'm sticking it to him. It's a question of spending taxpayers money in a intelligent way, in a rational way. And with so many terrible needs in this country -- yes, you got elderly people watching this program trying to get by in $12,000 a year, people can't afford their prescription drugs.

We should not be wasting $5 billion on a wall when there are much more cost-effective ways to do border security.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you if I can't move on to another topic. That, of course, the departure of the Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in the wake of a decision to summarily withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, of course, the home of ISIS. Now, there's this -- the president is ordering the having of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, the home of al Qaeda.

In your view, are Americans less safe today as a result of those decisions and the departure of the defense secretary?

SANDERS: Look, we have been in Afghanistan for 17 years, Syria is an enormously horrible and complicated civil war. It has been, my view, that we need to begin the process of bringing our troops home. But you don't do it by a tweet. You don't do it without informing your allies. You don't do it in a way that leaves allies of yours and innocent people in a very dangerous situation, i.e., the Kurds.

So, you need a process, an international process to bring our troops home and that certainly is not the way an impulsive president like Trump is functioning.

SCIUTTO: In the wake of this, I had the opportunity last night to speak the former defense secretary and also former GOP senator from neighbor of yours, Maine, William Cohen and I asked him last night if he believes Donald Trump is fit to be commander-in-chief he answered simply no. Do you agree?

SANDERS: Look, I don't believe that temperamentally Donald Trump is fit to be the president of the United States. You cannot have a president who makes important decisions and overrides what the United States Congress has worked hard to do because he saw something on a TV program. That is not the way the United States government should be functioning.

SCIUTTO: Senator Sanders, thanks for joining us tonight.

SANDERS: Thank you, Jim.

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