Bernie Sanders on Abdul El-Sayed's Huge Win, DSA and AI

Senator Sanders, welcome back to Puts A. America. Great to be with you. I saw that you described Abdul's primary win as the most extraordinary victory you can think of in modern American politics. What makes you think that? I'll tell you why. And you tell me what you think. Here is a guy who took on the entire Democratic Establishment in Michigan, okay? Took on the entire National Democratic Establishment, okay? And then took on $70 million of Super PAC and outside funding, about 30 million of it coming from APAC. Now, help me out here. You know something about these things. Have you ever heard of a candidate in a major race getting outspent nine to one, taken on the entire Establishment and winning? No, not in a primary like that. Now we know it's going to win the general though. Then it would really be. Then it would really be extraordinary. All right, but all I'm saying, you asked me, I cannot recall somebody having done that. So it was an extraordinary victory. And in addition in Michigan last night, we won two congressional races as you know, Donovan McKinney, beat an incumbent in Detroit. We'll be the next congressman. Will Lawrence, one in Lansing, a strong victory. I think he stands a good chance to win in November as well. It ended up being a really close race. Abdul won by about a point. What does the close finish tell you about where democratic voters are right now? Especially, you know, the 720,000 or so who voted for Haley Stevens? Well, John, it certainly was a close race. I was up to three o'clock, go four o'clock in the morning. So if I fall asleep, don't take it personally. But you have to understand that 70 million dollars was spent against this guy. So I want to rephrase the question and say if it was a fair fight financially. And there was no spending difference. How many points would he won by 10, 20 points? Maybe, I don't know. But all in all, I think it was an extraordinary victory. I think the message right now and I think Haley Stevens was very gracious in a concession speech and she was exactly right. We understand that we have the most dangerous president in the modern history of the United States and we have got to elect a democratic control of the Senate and the House and we've all got to work together to make that happen. And I think I would suspect that the overwhelming majority of the people who voted for Haley Stevens understand that. Looking at the map, Abdul dominated in college towns, highly educated areas. He didn't do as well in sort of the working class city and blue collar suburbs. And this has been a pattern with more progressive candidates and democratic primaries with I think your presidential races being the notable exception that I can think of. Why do you think more economically populous candidates aren't doing as well with working class voters than more moderate establishment candidates? I think and again, let's remember that what last night was a pattern is consistent with what we have seen all over this country, by the way, in the last year for Mondani's victory in New York City through Maylotz, Kiros's victory in Colorado and a lot in between. Progressives are winning, John. And winning for a lot of reasons were often winning as was the case last night with a huge turnout. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that was a record-breaking turnout in Michigan Democratic primary. Yes, yeah, it was. That didn't happen by accident. It happened because among other things, Abdul was able to bring out a lot of young people who previously did not get involved in the political process. And a lot of people are kind of given up on politics. But I have absolute confidence that Abdul's message of economic justice, of demanding the billionaire's pay their fair share of taxes, and I'll tell you something else, this guy is a doctor. And I desperately need him in the U.S. Senate to help me and others move toward a Medicare for all single pay-up program. I think it's going to resonate all over Michigan with the Democrat Republican or independent. Do you think it's harder to reach working class voters with that message? Do you think that they just, you know, people are busy and they're not paying as close attention to politics? Like, how do you think about that? And you got the internet phenomenon and algorithms of where people see what they want to see and what they have seen yesterday. So it's hard to break through that. But what has excited me about Abdul's campaign, and again, Manani did it, New York, others have done it, he has people, thousands and thousands of people out on the street. And one of the differences drawn between our campaigns and establishment Democratic campaigns, they always have more money than we do. They hire great consultants, they do good 30 second ads. We put people out on the street knocking on doors. And I think in Abdul's case in Michigan, we're going to have to have thousands and thousands of people knocking on doors, explaining to Republicans, do you really think it's a good idea? Do you have tax breaks, the billionaires and cut back on health care and education, et cetera, et cetera? So it's an enormous amount of work to be done. It's going to be done in a grassroots way. I think we win. So as you look to the fall, what is, you know, Abdul's probably going to face even more money than he did in the primary. It's obviously a tougher electorate. What's one thing he has to do, and he has campaign has to do that they haven't done yet? I think we still have more work to be done within the African American community. Maybe the women's community. But there are great leaders in the state of Michigan and all over this country who I think can help us make that happen. Pots of America breaking news is brought to you by Zapor Cruder with everyday interactions becoming increasingly impersonal. Someone going just one extra step can be huge. Like when my doctor takes the time to call me with test results instead of sending them electronically, they came back positive for gay. It makes me feel like a human being again. If you're hiring, great candidates can also go the extra step and tell you why they're interested in your job on Zapor Cruder as a way to stand out from others in the pool. And Zapor Cruder has a new feature showing you the most interested qualified candidates first so you can meet the right people faster. Zapor Cruder's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. So try Zapor Cruder and meet great candidates who will go the extra step for your job. Four out of five employers who post on Zapor Cruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free today at zippercruder.com/cricket. That's zippercruder.com/cricket. Zipper Cruder, meet your match on Zipper Cruder. So you endorsed a lot of progressive candidates like Abdul the cycle. You mentioned a few others who won last night. There are also a lot of progressive candidates, DSA candidates running who you haven't endorsed. How do you decide which progressive candidates get your endorsement and which don't? Well you know we're not you know some kind of huge machine hiss so we have to be kind of have to pick and choose. One of the things that people don't know is that we have also endorsed dozens and dozens and dozens of what we call down ballot candidates. People are running for school boards, city council, state legislature, mayor and small towns. And that in a sense becomes if you like the farm club the future leaders of America. Some great people in legislature right now that we've helped get elected. And we have trained by the way. We have programs that say hey you want to run for office. This is how you send that a press release. This is how you do social media et cetera et cetera. But we have you know limited limited resources. So what we do is hey what do you stand for? What do you stand for? If you are a moderate liberal type Democrat that's great. There are other people who support you. That's not us. Do you support Medicare for which is more or less what I think if you would ask me if there's one litmus test. Probably Medicare for all would be if. Do you support attacks on billionaires? Are you prepared to take on the oligarchs? What is your view about the extremist government in Israel? So you need that information but that's not enough. Then you have to say look you can I have seen this. I've experienced this. People have really they're really smart. They have great answers to everything. They can't run a campaign. You know it's not easy putting together a campaign. And Abdul did it by the way. Not everybody can do it. So you've got to say all right what's the nature of your campaign? How many volunteers do you have? Well we don't have any. You raise in any money. No we're not. Okay well it's nice. Have a nice day. You're a great guy but we're not going to support you. So those are some of the things that we look at. I noticed you haven't yet endorsed in the Wisconsin governor's race. What's your thinking there and might you endorse her? I don't think so. I've met France. Francesca a couple of years ago. I was in Wisconsin and she seems very very nice. But again this is a race. I just am not that familiar with we have not gotten involved in many governors races. I think we did one in Maine with Troy Jackson. You know obviously my major concern right now is seeing that we have a senate and a house that is going to stand up to Trump. That's really where my focus is. So as of now we have not been involved in that race. So your your brand of progressive politics has always been focused on the material needs of working class people and I would say that to the extent that you've broken from Democratic Party policy it's usually around economic issues, healthcare, etc. There are some DSA candidates today, including some who won their primaries this cycle, who've also talked about abolishing prisons, defunding or even abolishing the police, abolishing borders, you've never been for any of that. Are you worried that taking those positions which are unpopular with most voters and even most Democrats sort of hurt the movement that you've worked really hard to build? Well, you know, look, people have different views and what you know, as well as I do, that the right wing, that's their job, right? They will take what one person said and put, you know, $80 billion of TV ads on it and make it claim every Democrats supports that. I know serious persons that I know who is running for office, believes in quote-unquote defunding. The police, I was a mayor for eight years, I worked very closely with cops. They have a very difficult job. Do we need police reform? Do we need to get rid of racism? With them police departments? Absolutely. Are there jobs that other people can be doing in terms of mental health, drug addiction and outflows on a cop's shoulders? Yeah, I think we should look at that. But nobody I know believes in defunding the police in terms of doing away with prisons. I hope the day comes. I hope the day comes when we don't lead the world in the number of people who are in costory. That speaks very poorly of our society. But does that mean that there should not be dangerous people who should be behind bars? Of course, everybody agrees with that. Open borders? No. Most of us believe in comprehensive immigration reform, not opening up all the borders. But a lot of this stuff, as you well know, is what the right wing plays on and multiplies on Fox, ten times a day and through their ads. But most of the serious candidates that I know and support do not support those things. You've made a really compelling case that the Democratic Party can't just be anti-Trump. We have to be for something. On the other hand, you never want to promise voters things that you can't actually get done. And I think about this just in terms of the next two years in this cycle, right? So, a bunch of Democrats wouldn't say, "Everything goes well when we take Congress. Trump's still president for two years. What do you think Democratic candidates running today can realistically promise voters in terms of a Democratic Congress the next two years?" John, I would look at, that's a good question that you've raised. I would look at it a little bit differently. I would not start off by saying, "Oh, Donald Trump is president. You know, he probably veto any serious and good piece of legislation. Therefore, we can't bring it up." That's not the way I look at it. I look at it from the position of, and let me be very clear, you may agree with me, you may not. I think the system is horrifically broken. In many ways, we're on a Titanic right now. Every place you look, whether it's healthcare, whether it's transportation, whether it's education, whether it's a corrupt campaign finance system, whether it is oligarchy and massive income and wealth inequality, whether it is climate change. I mean, I can go on and on. It's scary stuff. I mean, we'll live it in really crazy times. And then on top of that, you got Donald Trump as president, who does everything, you know, it does the wrong things every, every single day. So, I think the first thing you do, John, and what my politics is about, is to be honest with people. You say, "I don't stop. What can you do?" What are the problems facing? Are you, all right? You're worried that you can't afford to go to college? Where the richest country on earth? What should we do? Did God determine that public education ends at the 12th grade? Can we make public colleges and universities tuition free? Do you think that zero or four is important for a kid's development? Of course you do. Should we have universal and free childcare so that all families can enjoy? Yeah, you can. Oh, Bernie, that's a great idea. How are you going to pay for it? Well, okay. That's another issue. Maybe we don't, maybe we demand that large corporations and the wealthiest people stop paying their fair share of taxes. Maybe we don't spend 1.1 trillion on the military. But this is what I believe, John, and it really is at the heart of my politics. You've got to deal with where people are at. They are hurting. They are giving up on democracy in many cases because they don't see government do anything for them. So what my strategy would be to answer your question is, if I had the power and I have some power, I will say to the Democrats, you gain control of the House, you gain control of the Senate. Take what you're going to do. In the first two, three, four months, you're going to pass Medicare for all. And if Mr. Trump wants the veto it, let him. And we're going to explain to the American people why he beat her to it. And we're going to lower prescription drug costs to the price that other countries around the world are paying. He's going to veto that fight. We're going to raise the minimum wage. We're going to put a tax, we're going to raise taxes on billionaires. Let Mr. Trump say no. And when he says no, we have transformed politics because the next time around we'll win a landslide, but great. That's my view of politics. Looking ahead to 2028, I mean, you've been so outspoken on AI and it's clearly going to be a huge issue, not just in this election, but again in 2028 when we actually have a presidential race, what do you hope to hear from Democratic candidates and the Democratic party in terms of how we handle artificial intelligence? John, there are easy answers and they're hard ones. And I got to tell you of all of the issues out there. This one, you know, how, you know, why you can't sleep at night, this is one of them. Now, maybe I'm crazy and it may well be. Look, if you have, first of all, we thought of the assumption is nobody knows what's going to happen, right? You don't, I don't, nobody does. You know, Elon Musk doesn't know, nobody knows. Here is my nightmare. This is what I worry about. You're looking what I think we can agree on as the most transformational technology in the history of humanity. Okay, it's going to make the industrial revolution seem like a piece of cake. This stuff is moving quickly in every aspect of our society. How many millions of jobs will be lost? I don't know. What happens to the workers? You're up 50-year-old truck driver and now you've got to drive this vehicle, taking your job, what happens to you? You're a kid graduating college. There's no entry-level job. What happens to you? You're a lawyer, you know, firm no longer need you. What happens to you? So economically, I worry about it. I worry about it also. And I say all these things and the reason I am fighting these fights is I don't have all the answers. But somebody got to start this discussion and talk about it. All right, democracy, all right? Tomorrow, they will probably be some kind of deep fake of me on your program saying how much I love Donald Trump and what a great job he is, right? Yeah, right. All right, so has that happened to you? Not yet, but wait for it. Yeah, it'll happen. All right, so you're at a moment where people look at the internet, we don't know truth from fiction, right? You really don't. You've seen those deep fakes, right? Oh yeah, oh yeah. All right, so if a day before the election and you saw what happened to the sky, Thomas Massey, where it was alleged that a video of him walking into a hotel room with two young congresswoman, right? Polo, why? Did older people in Kentucky believe it? Some did. All right, how do you deal with that and protect democracy? How and what worries me very much? Reading scores for our kids is in decline, you know that? Writing capabilities, cognitive capabilities, kids are addicted to screens. How do you deal with that? Recently, we've seen instances of AI escaping human control. I talked to a Nobel Prize winner who thinks that as AI becomes smarter than human beings, we could face an existential threat. All right, these are huge issues. We need to have a, we need to slow it down. That's the first thing we need to do. Mr. Massey cannot run the world and his friends, so that's what I worry about. Same, it's one of the things that keeps me up at night for sure and especially having two two young boys who go through the education system. You want to make sure they are trained for actual jobs that are going to exist out there and not just looking at their screens. Senator Sanders, thank you as always for joining PodSafe America. I really appreciate the time. Well, thank you, John. Keep up the great work. Thanks. You too. Take care.