Bernie Sanders Interview | Lex Fridman Podcast #450

Lex Fridman interviews Senator Bernie Sanders about the state of American democracy and economics. Sanders argues the U.S. is moving toward an oligarchic society where billionaires and corporate lobbyists buy elections and shape legislation. He makes the case that his signature policies, getting money out of politics, Medicare for All, a $17 minimum wage, and fair taxation of billionaires, are widely popular rather than radical. The conversation covers his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, his clash with the Democratic establishment, his views on capitalism and innovation, and the rise of the progressive caucus. It closes with personal reflections on his heart attack, mortality, and what gives him hope.

• Sanders frames his central thesis: the United States is moving toward an oligarchic form of society with unprecedented concentration of corporate ownership and billionaire political power.
  00:05:44
• He argues most politicians are not corrupt through cash bribes; instead the system makes them dependent on wealthy donors whose interests they then internalize.
  00:08:20
• Sanders calls for ending Citizens United and moving to public funding of elections with spending limits, but says no major candidate will champion it.
  00:10:24
• He lays out his Medicare for All plan: strengthen Medicare, add dental, hearing, and vision, then progressively lower the eligibility age from 65 to cover everyone.
  00:16:07
• Sanders cites a Rand Corporation figure of a 50 trillion dollar redistribution of wealth from the bottom 90 percent to the top 1 percent over 50 years.
  00:27:01
• He recounts Obama telling him he is an Old Testament prophet, but that prophets do not get to be king, and kings have to make choices.
  00:30:38
• He explains the central struggle for the Democratic party's future as a fight between its corporate wing and its progressive working-class wing.
  00:51:26
• Sanders reveals his greatest fear is not death but infirmity, recounting how his heart attack five years ago was the first time his body failed him.
  00:57:42

• Sanders won 23 states running an outsider presidential campaign against the Democratic establishment.
  00:00:00
• There are over 1,800 well-paid pharmaceutical lobbyists in Washington versus 535 members of Congress.
  00:07:19
• The Pentagon, with a roughly one trillion dollar annual budget, is the only federal agency unable to pass an independent audit.
  00:07:49
• Sanders' 2016 campaign received millions of contributions averaging about 27 dollars each.
  00:09:22
• An estimated 60,000 Americans die each year because they can't access a doctor for financial reasons, and one in four cancer patients goes bankrupt or depletes family resources.
  00:21:18
• Eugene Victor Debs ran for president five times, the last time from a jail cell over his opposition to World War I, and still won a million votes.
  00:31:41
• The federal minimum wage is 7.25 an hour; Sanders advocates raising it to 17 an hour.
  00:43:40
• Sanders earns about 175,000 a year, became a multimillionaire largely through two bestselling books, owns three modest residences, and drives an 11-year-old car.
  00:45:46
• The House progressive caucus now has nearly 100 members, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom Sanders' campaign inspired to run.
  00:49:54
• As budget committee chairman, Sanders helped write the American Rescue Plan, which cut childhood poverty by 40 percent via a child tax credit.
  00:55:06

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