From: The CNN Democratic debate transcript, annotated
by Washington Post -- Oct 13, 2015
SANDERS: Well, let's understand that when we talk about Syria, you're talking about a quagmire in a quagmire. You're talking about groups of people trying to overthrow Assad, other groups of people fighting ISIS. You're talking about people who are fighting ISIS using their guns to overthrow Assad, and vice versa.
I'm the former chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee, and in that capacity I learned a very powerful lesson about the cost of war, and I will do everything that I can to make sure that the United States does not get involved in another quagmire like we did in Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country. We should be putting together a coalition of Arab countries who should be leading the effort. We should be supportive, but I do not support American ground troops in Syria.
COOPER: ...Do black lives matter, or do all lives matter? Let's put that question to Senator Sanders.
SANDERS: Black lives matter.
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: And the reason -- the reason those words matter is the African American community knows that on any given day some innocent person like Sandra Bland can get into a car, and then three days later she's going to end up dead in jail, or their kids...
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: ...are going to get shot. We need to combat institutional racism from top to bottom, and we need major, major reforms in a broken criminal justice system...
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SANDERS: ...In which we have more people in jail than China. And, I intended to tackle that issue. To make sure that our people have education and jobs rather than jail cells.
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SANDERS: Well, first of all, let's remember where we were when Bush left office. We were losing 800,000 jobs a month. And I know my Republican friends seem to have some amnesia on this issue, but the world's financial crisis was on -- the world's financial markets system was on the verge of collapse. That's where we were.
Are we better off today than we were then? Absolutely. But the truth is that for the 40 years, the great middle class of this country has been disappearing. And in my view what we need to do is create millions of jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure; raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour; pay equity for women workers; and our disastrous trade policies, which have cost us millions of jobs; and make every public college and university in this country tuition free.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: Today, it is my view that when you have the three...
COOPER: Senator...
SANDERS: ...largest banks in America -- are much bigger than they were when we bailed them out for being too big to fail, we have got to break them up.
SANDERS: Well, I remember that meeting very well. I remember it like it was yesterday. Hank Paulson, Bernanke came in, and they say, "guys, the economy is going to collapse because Wall Street is going under. It's gonna take the economy with them."
And you know what I said to Hank Paulson? I said, "Hank, your guys -- you come from Goldman Sachs. Your millionaire and billionaire friends caused this problem. How about your millionaire and billionaire friends paying for the bailout, not working families in this country?"
So to answer your question, no, I would not have let the economy collapse. But it was wrong to ask the middle class to bail out Wall Street. And by the way, I want Wall Street now to help kids in this country go to college, public colleges and universities, free with a Wall Street speculation tax.
SANDERS: When the Republicans -- when the Republicans in the Congress and some Democrats were talking about cutting Social Security and benefits for disabled veterans, for the so-called chained CPI, I founded a caucus called the Defending Social Security Caucus.
My view is that when you have millions of seniors in this country trying to get by -- and I don't know how they do on $11,000, $12,000, $13,000 a year -- you don't cut Social Security, you expand it. And the way you expand it is by lifting the cap on taxable incomes so that you do away with the absurdity of a millionaire paying the same amount into the system as somebody making $118,000. You do that, Social Security is solvent until 2061 and you can expand benefits.
SANDERS: I didn't leave anybody at the altar. I voted against that piece of legislation because it had guest-worker provisions in it which the Southern Poverty Law Center talked about being semi-slavery. Guest workers are coming in, they're working under terrible conditions, but if they stand up for their rights, they're thrown out of the country. I was not the only progressive to vote against that legislation for that reason. Tom Harkin, a very good friend of Hillary Clinton's and mine, one of the leading labor advocates, also voted against that.
LOPEZ: Tom Harkin isn't running for president. You are.
SANDERS: I know that. But point being is that progressives did vote against that for that reason. My view right now -- and always has been -- is that when you have 11 million undocumented people in this country, we need comprehensive immigration reform, we need a path toward citizenship, we need to take people out of the shadows.
SANDERS: Well, I was chairman for two years, and when I was chairman we did take action. What we did is pass a $15 billion dollar piece of legislation which brought in many, many new doctors, and nurses into the V.A. so that veterans in this country could get the health care when they needed it, and not be on long waiting lines.
COOPER: Senator -- Senator Sanders, you're the only one on this stage who voted against the Patriot Act in 2001...
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: It was 99 to one and I was maybe the one. I don't know.
COOPER: ... and the reauthorization votes. Let me ask you, if elected, would you shut down the NSA surveillance program?
SANDERS: I'm sorry?
COOPER: Would you shut down the NSA surveillance program?
SANDERS: Absolutely. Of course.
COOPER: You would, point blank.
SANDERS: Well, I would shut down -- make -- I'd shut down what exists right now is that virtually every telephone call in this country ends up in a file at the NSA. That is unacceptable to me. But it's not just government surveillance. I think the government is involved in our e-mails; is involved in our websites. Corporate America is doing it as well.
If we are a free country, we have the right to be free. Yes, we have to defend ourselves against terrorism, but there are ways to do that without impinging on our constitutional rights and our privacy rights.
SANDERS: I have a lot of respect for president Obama. I have worked with him time and time again on many, many issues. But here's where I do disagree. I believe that the power of corporate America, the power of Wall Street, the power of the drug companies, the power of the corporate media is so great that the only way we really transform America and do the things that the middle class and working class desperately need is through a political revolution when millions of people begin to come together and stand up and say: Our government is going to work for all of us, not just a handful of billionaires.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: Well, I will tell you this. I believe -- and Pope Francis made this point. This is a moral issue. The scientists are telling us that we need to move extremely boldly.
I am proud that, along with Senator Barbara Boxer, a few years ago, we introduced the first piece of climate change legislation which called for a tax on carbon.
And let me also tell you that nothing is gonna happen unless we are prepared to deal with campaign finance reform, because the fossil fuel industry is funding the Republican Party, which denies the reality of climate change...
(APPLAUSE)
...and certainly is not prepared to go forward aggressively.
This is a moral issue. We have got to be extremely aggressive in working with China, India, Russia.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, greatest national security threat?
SANDERS: The scientific community is telling us that if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we're going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable. That is a major crisis.
LOPEZ: Thank you, Anderson.
Senator Sanders, right here in Nevada, there will be a measure to legalize recreational marijuana on the 2016 ballot. You've said you smoked marijuana twice; it didn't quite work for you. If you were a Nevada resident, how would you vote?
SANDERS: I suspect I would vote yes.
(APPLAUSE)
And I would vote yes because I am seeing in this country too many lives being destroyed for non-violent offenses. We have a criminal justice system that lets CEOs on Wall Street walk away, and yet we are imprisoning or giving jail sentences to young people who are smoking marijuana. I think we have to think through this war on drugs...
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: ...which has done an enormous amount of damage. We need to rethink our criminal justice system, we we've got a lot of work to do in that area.
SANDERS: You know? The middle class -- Anderson, and let me say something about the media, as well. I go around the country, talk to a whole lot of people. Middle class in this country is collapsing. We have 27 million people living in poverty. We have massive wealth and income inequality. Our trade policies have cost us millions of decent jobs. The American people want to know whether we're going to have a democracy or an oligarchy as a result of Citizens Union. Enough of the e-mails. Let's talk about the real issues facing America.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: Congress does not regulate Wall Street. Wall Street regulates Congress.
From:
The CNN Democratic debate transcript, annotated
by Washington Post -- Oct 13, 2015
Those were just a "few other things" Senator Bernie Sanders said in Democratic Debate One -- besides the "tired of the damn Emails" thing.
Just in case anyone was wondering ... Just in case the Corporate Media conveniently forgets them -- in their rush to "cover the story."