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

Interview

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COOPER: And with that on the table, we are joined now by Senator Sanders.

Senator Sanders, congratulations on the victory last night. How do you feel?

SANDERS: I feel great.

COOPER: A win is certainly a win. Pete Buttigieg, as John King was saying, finished closer than expected. He said last night, quote: Vulnerable Americans do not have the luxury of pursuing ideological purity over an inclusive victory.

I'm (ph) assuming that's a swipe at you or nod to you. What do you say to that?

SANDERS: Well, what I say is that we are putting together an unprecedented grassroots movement. It's made up of working people. It's made up of lower-income people. It's made up of young people.

It's made up of people who feel disenfranchised from a corrupt political system which is dominated by big money interest.

Anderson, in my view, the American people want a government finally that represents all of us, not just wealthy campaign contributors and the billionaire class, and that is why we're going to win in South Carolina, in Nevada. And we're going to beat Donald Trump.

COOPER: Some of the analysts last night, you know, said, look, if you take all the people who voted for Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and certainly a lesser extent, Vice President Biden last night, it's more than 52 percent of the vote, a big chunk of people going toward more moderate side of the party.

Can you win the nomination without voters who likely have already considered your plans for Medicare-for-All or free college tuition, and determined they don't want that?

[20:05:05]

SANDERS: Well, actually, I think if you look at the exit polls yesterday in New Hampshire, if my memory is correct, Medicare-for-All was extremely popular. And was one of the reasons that we won.

I think, Anderson, that the more we have an opportunity, and if we're in the general election, we certainly will, to talk about a dysfunctional health care system in which we spent twice as much per capita as the people of any other country, and yet 87 million of us are uninsured or underinsured, 30,000 die each year because they don't go (ph) to a doctor, 500,000 people go bankrupt because of medically- related bills, and we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs -- you know what, I think people will be very supportive of Medicare-for-All and help us win the election.

COOPER: Pete Buttigieg has actually been focusing on Medicare-for- All. And one of the things he said to CNN this morning was about union -- union health care plans. And I just want to play that for our viewers. It's from CNN this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When you're in Nevada, you talk to a lot of folks including workers in organizations like the Culinary Workers Union and other labor organizations that have fought hard for good health care plans. And Senator Sanders' message that he's going to erase those plans and replace them with a single government plan for everybody is going to be, I think, a very tough sell among voters who want to have that choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: That's a 60,000-member union. He says they're handing out flyers saying you want to end health care for their workers and their families.

SANDERS: That's -- that's not exactly what that flyer is about.

But truth is, I have far more union support, to the best of my knowledge, than Mr. Buttigieg does.

And in fact, many of the unions are strongly supporting of a Medicare- for-All single-payer system, and I'll tell you why. Because when unions sit down and negotiate with their employers, very often what the employer will say, well, you know, I can give you a 2 percent wage increase, but I'm going to have to cut back on your health care benefits.

Talk to any union official and they will tell you they spend half their lives just trying to protect the health care benefits that they have.

We are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people, and in those countries, unions are going to have to defend the health care benefits they have. They already have health care. They can talk about better wages and better working conditions.

So I think what you will find is that many of the unions are supportive of Medicare-for-All because it is comprehensive health care. You lose your job, you got it. You're old, you got it. You're young, you got it. You're unemployed, you got it.

It is where this country, if my view, has got to go.

COOPER: You know the criticism, obviously, of Iowa, and New Hampshire, largely white rural populations, not representative of most of the country. Next contest, obviously, is Nevada and then South Carolina, much more diverse states.

There was a national Quinnipiac poll this week. It showed Mike Bloomberg leading you among African-American voters 22 percent to 19 percent. Again, a lot of people haven't actually seen Mike Bloomberg in the flesh. They've just seen his TV commercials.

But does that concern you?

SANDERS: Look, I think at the end of the day when people, A, learn about Mr. Bloomberg's record of stop-and-frisk in New York City, I think that will change some minds.

But, second of all, I think when people understand that in our democratic society, we have an individual worth some $60 billion who in an unprecedented way, Anderson, is literally trying to buy the elections. He didn't compete in Iowa where all the Democratic candidates did, nor in New Hampshire, nor in Nevada, nor in South Carolina.

He didn't hold town meetings. He didn't talk to people, answer questions. All he did is take a small part of his $60 billion, put it into TV commercials, and I guess that can get you votes.

But at the end of the day, it is my firm belief that our kind of grassroots coalition, it's a multigenerational, multiracial coalition, with millions of people knocking on doors, volunteering, making small campaign contributions, we're going to defeat a billionaire.

COOPER: James Carville, who's obviously a longtime Clinton loyalist, who was supporting Senator Michael Bennet, who obviously dropped out of the primary race last night, he said this week core Democratic voters aren't interested being in what he called, said, a cult. He said they're not interested in socialism and revolution and other things, he called foolishness, and that, quote, I don't know how you win an election 78 years old screaming in a microphone about the revolution.

I don't know if he was actually screaming at the time, although it's very possible, knowing James.

But -- so, I want to -- I want to give you a chance to respond.

SANDERS: Look, James, in all due respect, is a political hack who said very terrible things when he was working for Clinton against Barack Obama. I think he said some of the same things.

Look, we are taking on the establishment.

[20:10:02]

This is no secret to anybody. We're taking on the Wall -- I guess the former head of Goldman Sachs attacked me yesterday. We're taking on Wall Street --

COOPER: Yes, he had some unkind things as well.

SANDERS: He did. Yes. Wall Street.

And the insurance companies don't like me. You know what, the pharmaceutical industry, which is charging us 10 times more for the same drugs they sell in Canada, they don't like me either. Nor does the fossil fuel industry because their product happens to be destroying our planet, nor does the military industrial complex or the prison industrial complex.

We are taking on Trump, the Republican establishment, Carville and the Democratic establishment. But at the end of the day, the grassroots movement that we are putting

together of young people, of working people, of people of color, want real change.

COOPER: But you knew --

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: And they want us to take --

COOPER: Right, sorry.

SANDERS: Yes, I'm sorry, go ahead.

COOPER: You knew, though, it's not all, you know, just establishment folks who have a vested interest. I mean, there are, you know, American citizens who, you know, went out to vote in New Hampshire, and voted for Klobuchar or voted for Buttigieg --

SANDERS: Right.

COOPER: -- or in some cases Biden, who just feel like --

SANDERS: Right.

COOPER: -- revolution is -- it's just too much.

SANDERS: All right. But let's --

COOPER: They -- and they maybe like their plans. They don't want their insurance taken away for something else in government hands they don't have, you know, any idea about.

SANDERS: Well, first of all, I think if you look at the issues that we are talking about, raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour -- enormously popular. Demanding that the wealthy and the powerful and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes -- enormously powerful and popular. Making public colleges and universities tuition-free.

As I said earlier, Medicare-for-All was one of the reasons we won in New Hampshire. It is very popular in New Hampshire and I suspect among Democrats all over this country.

Criminal justice reform. Immigration reform. These are issues that the American people, in fact, support.

And we're going to win this election because we are prepared to stand up to Wall Street and the corporate elite and finally do what the American people want.

COOPER: Senator Bernie Sanders, appreciate it. Thank you.

SANDERS: Thank you.

COOPER: Just ahead, the other big -- the other contender in the liberal lane, Senator Elizabeth Warren, she joins us.

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