#1330 - Bernie Sanders

Joe Rogan (0:03)

And we're live, hello Bernie.

Bernie Sanders (0:05)

How are you Joe?

Joe Rogan (0:06)

Wonderful, pleasure to meet you.

Bernie Sanders (0:07)

Nice to meet you.

Joe Rogan (0:08)

It's exciting to have you here, man, and it's obviously an exciting time for you. You know, presidential campaign is up in full swing.

Do you get frustrated by the time constraints of the debates?

Bernie Sanders (0:21)

Absolutely, it's, you shouldn't even call them a debate.

What they are is a, you know, reality TV show in which you have to come up with a soundbite and all that stuff. And it's the meaning. It's the meaning to the candidates, and it's the meaning to the American people. You can't explain the complexity of health care in America in 45 seconds. Nobody can.

Joe Rogan (0:44)

But why is it still done that way? Have you tried to, let's pull this thing.

Bernie Sanders (0:51)

You know, I think the DNC is in a difficult position. They have 20-plus candidates and they want to give everybody a fair shot, which is the right thing to do.

And then if you're going to have 10 candidates up on the stage, what do you do? But there are other ways that we've got to do it, because the issues facing this country are so enormous and in some cases so complicated, nobody in the world can honestly explain them in 45 seconds. And then that what encourages people to do is to come up with sound bites or do absurd things. If I yelled and scream on the show, or I took my clothes off, we get a lot of publicity, right? But if you give a thoughtful answer to a complicated question, it's not so sexy for the media.

Joe Rogan (1:29)

Well, you don't even have a chance to give a thoughtful answer. Like Tulsi Gabbard went after Kamala Harris, and then Kamala Harris had about 12 seconds to reply to it. It was so ridiculous to have something that's such an important issue.

Did you or did you not put all those people in jail for marijuana? Did you laugh about it? Did this happen? Did that happen? All these different things. Was evidence withheld?

These are long conversations.

Bernie Sanders (1:55)

But it takes us to another issue, and that as a nation, we do a pretty bad job in analyzing and discussing the serious issues facing our country.

And I hold the media to some degree responsible for that. Other countries, what they do is they say, Joe, you want to run for president? I'll tell you what, your party in the general election, we're going to give you a certain amount of time, hours, on television. And you use those hours anyway you want, you want a 15-minute discourse. You remember Ross Perot?

Joe Rogan (2:24)

Yes.

Bernie Sanders (2:24)

And people used to laugh at Ross Perot, because he used to get up there with a chart and all this stuff, and the media made fun of him. But in fact, he tried in his own way to explain his point of view to the American people. And we need serious discussion on serious issues.

Joe Rogan (2:39)

Well, he had the, because he was so rich, he had the ability to buy airtime on network television, which is pretty unprecedented. He just bought a chunk of airtime and then pled his case.

Bernie Sanders (2:50)

But you know what goes on in other countries? You don't have to buy that time.

What the obligation is, if you are a network, you're going to make that time free and available to candidates.

Joe Rogan (3:00)

Do you think that that's something that could be viable in America? Could you convince CBS and NBC and ABC to go along with something like that?

Bernie Sanders (3:08)

No, you couldn't convince them. You'd have to pass legislation to make that happen.

Joe Rogan (3:11)

But everyone's online today.

I mean, the entire country is essentially getting email and Facebook and all that jazz. Why bother doing it in this particular medium that has an inherent time constraint?

Bernie Sanders (3:24)

Well, you're right.

The internet has revolutionized politics. And in many ways, good ways, we use our social media, our email list, which is very large. Every day we're sending out stuff and other candidates are doing it the same way. But television still has a very important role to be playing.

Joe Rogan (3:41)

I'm sure it does, but I mean the ability to discuss things in long form, like you can do online, like you can do right here, right now. You can't get that on television.

Bernie Sanders (3:51)

Well, you could. I mean, if you had...