CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders

Interview

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[14:15:06] BALDWIN: And so with me now from Capitol Hill, Senator Bernie Sanders who recently unveiled an updated version of his own Medicare-for-All plan, one that has received support from several of his rivals for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. So Senator Sanders, welcome back. Nice to see you, sir.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good to be with you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So first, can you just tell me why upending the entire U.S. healthcare system all at once is better than doing it incrementally?

SANDERS: Well, we're not quite doing that. What we're doing is expanding Medicare, which is a very popular program for seniors right now 65 or older over a four-year period to all Americans.

So in the first year, it would go down to 55, next year 45, and then 35, and then cover all Americans. Also, what we do is expand Medicare coverage for elderly people by including dental care, which is a serious problem today, hearing aids and eyeglasses. Those are some of the benefits that Medicare today doesn't cover. To answer your question as to why? Well, the answer is that we, today are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a right. You've got 34 million people without any health insurance, even more under insured with high deductibles and copayments. And guess what, Brooke, at the end of all of that, we are spending twice as much per capita on healthcare, as do the people of any other country.

The question is that -- I'm sorry?

BALDWIN: But on the -- if I can jump in -- that the 34 million point, because -- so you're willing to extend health insurance to roughly 30 million who currently don't have it, while upending employer based insurance for more than 100 million. I see you wagging your hand, but Senator Sanders, those are the hard facts. Those are the numbers. Why would you want to do that?

SANDERS: Well, look, I'll tell you why. First of all, let's be clear. I know this is a talking point from our opponents, and let's understand. The function of the current healthcare system, Brooke, is to make enormous profits for the insurance companies and the drug companies.

Last year, the top 10 drug companies, for example, made $69 billion in profit while one out of five Americans cannot afford the cost of prescription drugs when the doctors prescribe medicine to them. That's insane.

So what we are going to do is lower the cost of prescription drugs in half. We're going to cut the cost of prescription drugs in half because that's what the rest of the world is paying. But to answer your question, let's be clear. Every single year, tens of millions of Americans change the Health Insurance Program. If you get fired tomorrow, guess what? You're going to have to find a new insurance program. And that's what employers do, people quit their jobs every year, tens of millions of people.

BALDWIN: Right, but let's hope most of us aren't getting fired and we get to keep our insurance as long as heavenly possible. And in that case, a lot of people like to have that option. I'm just saying.

SANDERS: Look, you have that option, actually you don't. It's your employer who determines who your insurance company will be. What we are doing, the truth is that Medicare today is the most popular Health Insurance Program in the country. And all we are doing is expanding it to cover all people and when we do that, we do something that many private insurance policies don't allow. We give you freedom of choice, and so the doctor that you go.

Right now, if you're in a network, you may not be able to go to the doctor you want or else you have to pay a lot more. No deductibles. No copayments. And we provide much more expensive benefits than most insurance companies.

So the question that you have to ask for the insurance company is we are spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as some people of any other country, I would like to the expenses going down.

BALDWIN: But on your point, I hear you on that point, Senator, but on the point of price, you know because this really does come down, how you pay for it, how you pass this politically? And on the price tag point, how can you contain healthcare costs when care will be free, which would likely lead to a spike in how many are already using that.

SANDERS: No. Not necessarily. That's not necessarily the case in other countries. What it will do, let's be fair, when we cut the cost of healthcare significantly, because right now, we're not going to see under our plan $20 billion in profits going through five insurance companies, so $69 billion in profits going to 10 pharmaceutical industries -- companies, when you do that, and you will eliminate all of the bureaucracy that currently exists. All of the administrative nightmares, I'm sure you have been to a doctor, I have been to a doctor. You've got to fill out a million forms.

We are spending a fortune just billing people in this country. The reason that other countries could do it much more cost effectively is their systems are simple. You walk in and you're covered. So the issue is how do you pay for it? And that's a good question. Right now you're paying for it in copayments and deductibles, your employer is paying for it in a very significant amount. If you are a family of four right now, who are self-employed, just spending $28,000 a year for insurance.

[14:20:10] SANDERS: So what we are going to do is do away with private premiums, you're not going to have to pay premiums to a private insurance companies. We are cutting your prescription drug costs in half. Are your taxes going to go up? Yes, they will. But not as much as your premiums are going down.

The overwhelming majority of Americans will pay less for healthcare under Medicare-for-All system than they currently pay.

BALDWIN: Okay, Senator, let me turn the page and just ask you about -- I'm sure you've seen our new CNN poll out today. It shows you and former Vice President Joe Biden as the front runners in this this current race. And my question to you is, will your campaign be more about the contrast that you've clearly been drawing with Biden? Or will it be more focused on who can best defeat President Trump?

SANDERS: Well, I think both to be honest with you. Look, in my view, Donald Trump is most dangerous President in the modern history of this country. He is a pathological liar. He is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe. This is somebody who should not be President. I will do everything I can, if I'm the Democratic nominee to defeat him, and I will support if I lose somebody else, whether it is, Joe, whether it's somebody else, we're going to defeat Donald Trump.

But on the other hand, I think what I want to see in the Democratic primary is not, you know, personal attacks, or any of that stuff. What I want to see as an issue-oriented campaign and Joe and I have very different pasts in terms of how we have voted, and very different vision for the future. And that is something that we should be discussing. For example, all right, I voted against the war in Iraq, in fact,

helped lead the opposition to what turned out to be the worst foreign policy disaster in the modern history of America. Joe voted for it. I voted against NAFTA. I voted against permanent normal trade relations with China, two trade agreements, which cost us millions of good-paying jobs. Joe supported those agreements.

I voted against the deregulation of Wall Street. Joe supported that legislation, which I think, you know, many people agree with me, some don't look to the Wall Street collapse of 2008.

BALDWIN: Senator, let me jump in, because I hear you on the contrast, and there are a number of them, but the one thing that both of you voted for and what Joe Biden helped write is the 1994 Crime Bill. Even former President Bill Clinton, who signed it into law says it went too far, right, it expanded mandatory minimums and boosted the nation's prison population.

SANDERS: Right, absolutely.

BALDWIN: It disproportionately impacted African-Americans and Hispanic.

SANDERS: Yes.

BALDWIN: So my question to you, Senator Sanders is do you regret that vote?

SANDERS: Well, let me give you my answer. Go to YouTube today and find out what I said. Literally on the day that I voted for it.

BALDWIN: Well, I'm looking at you right now, Senator, tell me if you regret it.

SANDERS: One second. I voted for that bill because that included the Violence Against Women's Act and it included a ban on assault weapons. And Brooke, you would be asking me today, Senator, why did you not vote for a ban on assault weapons? Why did you vote against it?

BALDWIN: I'm asking you today, if you regret your vote?

SANDERS: Sometimes you have legislation, which includes very good stuff, and very bad stuff, that legislation, including very bad stuff. I had to make the choice whether I voted to ban assault weapons, something that I promised the people of Vermont I would, and I also had to vote to make sure that we had a violence against women provision in there. If you see what I said on the floor at that time, I talked about mass incarceration, I talked about capital punishment.

So sometimes in the real world, in the Congress, you've got big pieces of legislation that are bad stuff, and God knows that legislation had bad stuff. And right now, I'm one of the leaders of the fight for criminal justice reform. So we don't have more people in jails than any other major country on Earth. Check my record for that.

BALDWIN: Speaking of jail, speaking of incarceration, I read your opinion piece. I mean, today, you wrote this opinion piece, "USA Today," everyone can go read it on why you think felons deserve the right vote. And you point out in the middle part of the piece that over 4.5 million Americans, disproportionately people of color, have lost their right to vote because they've served time.

And so senator on this on this issue, only 28 percent of Democrats or Democratic-leaners say that this is very important to them, that the candidate that they support take this position. And I just wanted to ask you, why is this so important to you and your campaign?

SANDERS: Well, Brooke, I think you know how politics works. I was asked that as a question. In fact, I didn't come up with it, I was asked the question, I gave an answer. And I think we should do what Canada does, what Israel does, what many countries around the world do and that is to separate if somebody commits a serious crime, they're going to go to jail. And if they are violent people, they may spend the rest of their lives in jail. That's the way it is. You pay a price when you commit a crime.

But this is what I believe, at a time when the Republican Party and Donald Trump are working overtime to suppress the vote, to make it harder for people of color, poor people, young people to vote, we have got to make it clear, in my view, that if you are an American citizen, even if you do something terrible, even if you're a bad person, we cannot take away your right to vote whether you're in jail or whether you left jail.

[14:25:11] SANDERS: Clearly, what Republicans are doing is trying to deny people of color the right to vote, and this is an issue I think we have to address head on. So even if you are in jail in my view --

BALDWIN: Even Democrats disagree with you. I mean, you I am sure saw what Corey Booker said.

SANDERS: Well, fine, look -- but let me say this, Brooke, four years ago, people disagreed with me on Medicare-for-All, raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour, criminal justice reform, spending a trillion dollars on rebuilding our infrastructure. People disagreed with me, they'll disagree with me now.

But you don't what? I will tell you what I think and that is if you're a citizen of this country, you have the right to vote, and I will oppose all efforts to try to deny Americans the right to participate in our democracy.

BALDWIN: Okay. Last week, you were at She, The People, and were asked what you would do to fight white supremacist violence as president and during your response, you were booed. And part of the criticism that was that you didn't answer the question. And you gave an answer that many hadn't heard before about marching with Dr. King in Washington? And would you like to respond to that criticism and the boos?

SANDERS: Well, look, if you check out, you know -- I got booed some people booed me. But I think if you listen to the response that I got, when I walked on and walked off, it was a fairly strong response. And my view is, obviously, that we have got to do everything that we can to make sure that we end the racism, institutional racism that exists in every form of white women today, who are black, experience 2.5 times the rate of infant mortality than white women do.

We have redlining that continues to exist in communities all over this country of blacks get rejected, blacks who have the same kind of background as whites get rejected from job applications more, that's called institutional racism. And there's nobody who is going to be stronger in opposing that. So we have got to move toward a country that as Dr. King mentioned, we judge people on their character, who they are and not by the color of their skin.

BALDWIN: Senator Bernie Sanders. Thank you, sir.

SANDERS: Thank you very much. Take care.

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