MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

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SCHULTZ: Welcome back to THE ED SHOW. Thanks for watching tonight. Battle lines are being drawn around Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. The White House wants him reconfirmed. So does Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd. They don"t want to change horses in the middle of an economic recovery. Other Democrats vehemently disagree. Barbara Boxer says Bernanke represents the failed policies of the guy who appointed him, George W. Bush.

Today, John McCain says that he will vote against the Fed Chair, Ben Bernanke. I don"t like the threats the Bernanke supporters are making. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner suggested the markets could tank if Bernanke doesn"t get reconfirmed. What is that all about? That"s the same argument Wall Street makes when they say Americans have to pay their bonuses. Any time we try to hold these masters of the universe accountable, we"re told that it could just rip apart the economy. You believe it?

Joining me now is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a vocal critic of Mr. Bernanke. Senator, good to have you on tonight.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Good to be with you, Ed?

SCHULTZ: Why not just give the White House what they want? They want this guy in this position. Why not give it to them?

SANDERS: Look, we"re in a terrible recession now. The recession was caused by the recklessness and greed of Wall Street. Ben Bernanke"s job, as chairman of the Fed, is to protect the safety and soundness of our financial institutions.

You know what? He failed and he failed badly. The evidence is very clear. When Bernanke became chairman of the Fed, he said it--he said it publicly, I want to follow in the footsteps of Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan"s philosophy is a disaster.

Many people in this country voted for President Obama because they wanted change. Maintaining the philosophy of Alan Greenspan is not change. That"s what Wall Street wants. That"s what big money wants. That"s this whole deregulatory philosophy which got us where we are right now.

SCHULTZ: OK. So Mr. Bernanke hasn"t played any role, in your opinion, in this market recovery that we"ve seen. When the president--last March, it was what 3,500, 4,000 points less than what it is right now. That"s people"s retirements. It"s their 401(k)s. It"s their pensions. So there are some positive things here. Hasn"t Mr. Bernanke played any kind of a role in that?

SANDERS: Sure he has. But he"s the guy whose job it was to prevent this problem in the first place. He was asleep at the switch. His job was to tell the financial institutions that Wall Street cannot be a gambling casino. He did not do that.

Furthermore, as part of the recovery, he lent out trillions of dollars

trillions of dollars at zero interest to large financial institutions.

Hey, Ed, do you know which financial institutions received that money and what the terms were? You don"t know. I don"t know because Mr. Bernanke is not giving us the transparency that we need.

Furthermore--furthermore, the Fed today has the power to lower interest rates on credit cards, in which millions of people are paying 25 or 30 percent. The Fed today has the power to demand.

SCHULTZ: OK, senator. So what you just explained here doesn"t sound good at all to the middle class in this country. So how can President Obama--and I"m asking you--how can President Obama strike a populist and then go ahead and support a guy like Ben Bernanke, if it is exactly what you say it is?

SANDERS: Ed, that"s exactly the problem. On Monday and Tuesday, the president and his supporters are saying, we"ve got to take on Wall Street. On Wednesday and Thursday, they"re giving Wall Street the Alan Greenspan/Ben Bernanke philosophy to run the Fed. It just doesn"t pass the smell test.

SCHULTZ: Is this a big PR problem for the White House if Bernanke gets reconfirmed?

SANDERS: I think what it says to the progressive committee and to ordinary Americans that when a president is talking about--I"m a supporter of Obama. I want him to succeed. Why are you going back to Bush? This was not only a Bush appointee; this was a member of Bush"s Economic Advisory Council, the chairman of that. Why are we appointing somebody who was active in the Bush administration.

SCHULTZ: Senator Sanders, what do you say to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who says, well, the market will react negatively if we make this change?

SANDERS: Any time you begin to bring about real change in this country, the big money interests don"t want it. They"re going to punish us. If you pass real health care reform, the stock market will go down because insurance companies and drug companies can"t make as much money as possible.

Don"t tell me there"s nobody else in this country, no economist out there, who is capable of running the Fed, but on behalf of the middle class and working class of this country, rather than the big money interests on Wall Street. I just don"t believe it. That is just an absurd remark.

SCHULTZ: Senator Sanders, keep up the fight. Appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

SANDERS: Thank you, Ed.

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