Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at a "Fighting Oligarchy" rally in Nampa, Idaho.
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00:00Alexandria, they told us this was a conservative state.
00:12They got it wrong.
00:16Before I go on, I want to say a word about Alexandria.
00:25Yes, she is an excellent congresswoman from New York.
00:34Yes, she has been an inspiration to young people all over the country.
00:42But I want to say something that is even more important about Alexandria.
00:48Six years ago, she was a waitress in New York City.
00:54And she looked around her in a community which has a whole lot of issues.
01:03She looked around her and she said, you know what, we can do better.
01:09So with no money, no organization, she took on one of the most powerful Democratic leaders in the U.S. Congress and she beat him.
01:24Now my point is not to grow her ego.
01:36That's not my point in saying that.
01:39My point is to say that in this arena of 12,000 people, there are hundreds of Alexandrias and Josephs and Tom's and Mary's.
02:03And what we are here today is not just to be with you in this rally as wonderful as that is.
02:13We're here for a deeper purpose.
02:15And that is to understand that in this very, very difficult moment in American history,
02:22all of us have got to get outside of our comfort zone.
02:32We have got to do tomorrow what we hesitated to do yesterday.
02:44And as Alexandria just said, when we stand together, when we do not allow them to divide us up by the color of our skin or where we were born or our sexual orientation, there is no stopping us.
03:00So I know that there are some pundits out there and they're saying,
03:26why does Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who come from some of the most liberal and blue states in the country, why are we here tonight?
03:42And the answer is we don't accept this blue state, red state nonsense.
03:48We are one people.
03:59That's right.
04:00We are the United States of America, not red states, not blue states.
04:13The country now faces some enormous problems.
04:16And at the top of the list, we have a nation which is now run by a handful of greedy billionaires.
04:30You know, I used to talk about oligarchy and people say, what is he talking about?
04:34Everybody knows what I'm talking about tonight.
04:38When Trump got inaugurated, sitting right behind them were the three wealthiest people in this country, Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg.
04:51And seated right behind them were 13 other billionaires who Trump had nominated to lead major government agencies.
05:05You know, some of you remember a lesson we learned in elementary school when Abraham Lincoln was in Gettysburg.
05:12And he was on the battlefield where 20,000 Union soldiers had died or had been wounded just a few days ago.
05:22And he looked out at that battlefield and he said, we are not going to forget the sacrifice they made.
05:29We are going to make a government of the people.
05:34That's why we're here tonight.
05:39We want a government of the people, by the people, for the people, not a government of the billionaire class, for the billionaire class, and by the billionaire class.
06:04And right now, unbelievable, as we speak, you got the wealthiest guy on earth, Mr. Musk.
06:13Mr. Musk, you don't hear about this much in the corporate media or on the halls of Congress.
06:23Mr. Musk himself owns five times more wealth than the bottom half of the households in America.
06:33One man.
06:38And this guy is running all over Washington, D.C., slashing the Social Security Administration.
06:48And what that means, what that means is elderly and disabled people will find it increasingly difficult to get the benefits they paid into.
07:03This guy is proposing to cut 83,000 jobs from the Veterans Administration.
07:15These are the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend our country.
07:23We owe them everything.
07:25And we're not going to allow Musk and his friends to cut VA benefits.
07:38And when we talk about oligarchy, it's not just economic power, it is political power.
07:49Right now, in this last election, Musk spent $270 million to elect Donald Trump as president.
08:01You get one vote.
08:02You get one vote.
08:06You get one vote.
08:08Musk gets one vote plus $270 million to elect Trump.
08:12And his reward is to become the most powerful person in government.
08:18But it is not just Musk and the Republican Party.
08:25The Democrats have their billionaires as well.
08:30And if you want to know why the Democrats over the years have not been as strong as they should be,
08:37in standing up for working class people, it has a lot to do with the power of those billionaires.
08:44So I know that I speak not just for progressives or moderates or conservatives.
08:55I think I speak for every American who understands that in our democracy,
09:01we cannot allow billionaires to buy elections.
09:05In America, one person, one vote, not billionaires buying elections.
09:21And that is why we've got to overturn this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision.
09:28I want to say a word about the oligarchs because it's something I really don't quite understand.
09:46One might think that if you had $10, $20, $30 billion, it would be enough.
09:53You might think that.
09:55But, you know, in America, we have a lot of people who are dealing with addiction issues.
10:00Drugs, alcohol, whatever.
10:02Well, these guys, these oligarchs, have a major, major addiction problem.
10:08And you know what it is?
10:10It is greed.
10:13They're like heroin addicts.
10:15They can't control themselves.
10:17They need more and more.
10:19And they do not care who they step over in order to get another billion dollars.
10:26So we are going to take care of their addiction problems.
10:34We're going to end their greed.
10:38But brothers and sisters, it is not just oligarchy we are dealing with right now.
10:53We are dealing with a president who undermines our Constitution every single day.
11:00Who threatens our freedom of speech and assembly and whose agents, as we speak, are rounding
11:11up innocent people off the streets, throwing them into unmarked vans and taking them to detention
11:19centers in this country or elsewhere.
11:26Can you imagine?
11:28Can you imagine?
11:29I don't know if some of you saw some of these videos.
11:31A woman walks down the street, suddenly a car stops, these guys come in plain clothes,
11:36masks on, throw her into a car and whisk her off someplace.
11:41Happened in Vermont today.
11:44That is what happens in dictatorships, not in democracy.
11:53We're not going to let Trump and his friends get away with that.
12:06And again, I don't care whether you're a conservative or a progressive.
12:11Men and women have fought to defend our democracy and our Constitution.
12:17And we're not going to let Trump destroy that Constitution.
12:28What this guy wants is more and more power.
12:32You know, the guys who wrote the Constitution back in the 1790s were nobody's fools.
12:38And they wrote a Constitution which had a separation of powers.
12:42You all remember reading about that in the fifth grade?
12:45You know, you got an executive branch, you got a legislative branch, you got a judiciary.
12:51And each one of those branches keeps a check on the other one.
12:56And day after day, what Trump is doing is trying to take power away from the Congress.
13:03He's trying to take power away from the judiciary.
13:08And right now, he's going after the media.
13:11I don't know if any of you saw it.
13:12He is now wanting to take away CBS's license because they did a story that criticized him.
13:21Oh, my word, CBS criticized him.
13:30Oh, let's drive them out of business.
13:33How terrible is that?
13:34He has sued ABC.
13:36He has sued Meta.
13:38He has sued the Des Moines Register.
13:41This guy cannot take criticism.
13:45He can dish it out all right, but he can't take it.
13:48And I say to Mr. Trump, if you can't take criticism, get out of the political process.
13:55This is a democracy.
14:09And if you can believe it, he is going after law firms that represented clients who are in opposition to Trump.
14:19And some of these cowardly law firms have caved in.
14:26You know, one might think that the function of a large, multi-billion dollar law firm is to defend the rule of law, not cave in to Donald Trump.
14:40And he is putting pressure on universities as well.
14:44Good news is Harvard University today said, go to hell.
14:49During World War II, when the United States of America and our allies were fighting fascism in the East and in Europe, 400,000 men and women died to defend American freedom.
15:17We take, as Americans, as the longest standing democracy on earth, as a country that the whole world has historically looked up to.
15:28And they say, we want to be like America.
15:30We love the American Constitution.
15:32We respect their democracy.
15:35We take democracy seriously.
15:38We will not allow Trump to undermine our way of life.
15:44Too many people have fought and died to defend democracy.
16:00But it is not only domestic policy that we should be concerned with.
16:07For the first time in the 250-year history of our country, we have a president who is aligning himself with dictatorship abroad.
16:26No, President Trump, Ukraine did not start that war.
16:31Russia did.
16:35But it's not just Ukraine.
16:45Trump is following in the rather unfortunate behavior of Joe Biden and wants billions of dollars more to fund Netanyahu's war machine in Gaza.
16:58Israel, like any country on earth, has the right to defend itself from terrorism.
17:10But it does not have the right to wage all-out war against the Palestinian people.
17:17Russia did not start that war against the United States.
17:18Israel, like any country on earth.
17:19Russia did not talk to them at the end of the country.
17:20Russia did not stop that in the region of the country.
17:28Russia did not come out of this fight.
17:34Russia did not fight against the United States.
17:39Russia did not fight against the world.
17:41Russia did not fight against the country to believe the world.
17:45In a territory of only 2.2 million people, Netanyahu has already killed 50,000 Palestinians,
17:55wounded over 100,000, and destroyed the entire infrastructure of Gaza.
18:06I am doing my best to demand not another nickel for Netanyahu's warmest dream.
18:15And as bad as all of that is, as bad as the reality that American bombs are killing children there,
18:32there is something now even worse.
18:34Trump and his friends have the brilliant idea that they want to forcibly expel the suffering people of Gaza,
18:42push them out so they can build a Riviera for their billionaire friends.
18:53That is absolutely insane.
18:57We will not allow that to happen.
18:59And let me now tell you just a little bit of what's going on in America
19:11that you're not going to see on corporate media and you're not going to hear on the halls of Congress.
19:17And that right now in America, we have two Americas.
19:23We have on top one America in which the wealthiest people, the top 1%, have never, ever had it so good.
19:34There, there is something that第一
19:59Okay, in America today, in America, in America today, we have more income, in America today.
20:22In America today, in America today,
20:37in America today, in America today is about the Summit of America today.
20:59Okay, okay, all right, let me move on to, I know that this is a sensitive issue, something
21:21I am helping leading the effort in Congress, but I do want to say, hold it, hold it, what
21:27we have also got to focus on is the crisis facing not only the people in Gaza, but the
21:33crisis facing the working class of this country.
21:40And the way we beat Trump is we develop an agenda that speaks to the needs of the working
21:48class of this country, not just the 1%.
21:58Today in America, 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck.
22:06Do you all know what living paycheck to paycheck is about?
22:12All right, I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck in a rent control apartment.
22:19I know something about it.
22:21All right, you tell me, what is living paycheck to paycheck?
22:26You can't pay for the rents.
22:27What else?
22:28You can't afford what?
22:32Can't afford groceries.
22:34People, hold it, one at a time, one at a time.
22:36People all over this country want to provide good quality food for their kids.
22:42They walk into a grocery store.
22:44They can't afford it.
22:46What else do you got?
22:49What?
22:50Health care.
22:52Health care.
22:53All right.
22:54People, one at a time, people get sick.
22:58And in this country, they can't afford to go to a doctor.
23:02We lose 60,000 people a year because they don't have the money to go to a doctor when they
23:09should.
23:13If you are a single mom, you can't afford childcare.
23:22If you are a college student, you're going to go deeply in debt to try to get the education
23:28you need to get a decent job.
23:34Meanwhile, while working families struggle to put food on the table, the richest 1% live
23:41in their own fantasy world.
23:43You may have seen just the other day, Jeff Bezos took some of his friends to outer space.
23:54When they go on vacation, they go to their own islands that they have, fly around the world
24:01in their own planes.
24:04Our demand is an economy that works for all, not just the few.
24:09Now, I want to deal with an issue, and I want you all to put this into your hearts.
24:23Back in 1944, a long time ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of the great presidents in American
24:30history, Roosevelt gave a State of the Union speeches in the middle of World War II.
24:39And he didn't get a whole lot of attention.
24:40He said, you know what?
24:41We have a great constitution, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly.
24:45But you know what we're lacking?
24:47What we are lacking is an understanding that economic rights are human rights.
25:00So you have the right to vote, but if you're sleeping out on the street, it doesn't matter.
25:05You have the right to vote, but if you can't afford health care, it doesn't matter.
25:11So what we need to do is to understand and not let the establishment beat us down.
25:20Economic rights are human rights.
25:22What that means is that Musk should not be able to own himself five times more than half of
25:31the households in America.
25:37What it means, and this is not a radical idea, it is not a radical idea.
25:44We are the richest country in the history of the world.
25:48We are not a poor country.
25:50We do not have to have people sleeping out on the street or kids going hungry.
26:01We don't have to have 20% of our elderly living on $15,000 a year or less.
26:12We don't have to have the highest rate of child poverty of almost any major nation on earth.
26:23So what do we have to do?
26:25What we have to have is an agenda that speaks to the needs of all Americans, whether you're
26:32in Idaho, Vermont or any place else.
26:39Brothers and sisters, health care is a human right.
26:55We should not be the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to every
27:01man, woman and child.
27:03We need to pass Medicare for all.
27:15Instead of spending a trillion dollars on the military, we need to build five million units
27:22of low income and affordable housing.
27:31We need to have the best education system in the entire world.
27:41I want the best and the brightest to go into teaching.
27:49I want the teaching profession to be respected.
27:58I want us to have free child care and I don't want our older kids to have to leave college
28:10deeply in debt, free college tuition.
28:21And despite what Trump says, climate change is not a hoax.
28:31It is an existential threat.
28:33We can lead the world and create millions of good-paying union jobs, transforming our energy
28:44system away from fossil fuel and its energy efficiency.
28:50Let me conclude by reading you a quote from Frederick Douglass.
29:00You remember Frederick Douglass?
29:02He was a great abolitionist and in the midst of the struggle to end the nightmare of slavery
29:12back in 1857.
29:15This is what he said and I quote, power concedes nothing without a demand.
29:24It never did and it never will.
29:28Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure
29:35of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.
29:41And these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows or with both.
29:48The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
30:03Now what the ruling, what the ruling class of this country, what the ruling class of this
30:09country wants you to believe is that you are powerless.
30:14They got all the money, they own the media, they own the economy, they own the political
30:20process.
30:21You got nothing.
30:22That's what they want you to believe.
30:27But tonight we are going to stand up loudly and proudly and tell them we have had enough.
30:44This country belongs to all of us, not the billionaire class.
30:48Let's go forward.
30:49Let's do it.