#2341 - Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders (0:01)

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

Joe Rogan (0:03)

The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Mr. Sanders, great to see you.

Bernie Sanders (0:13)

Good to be with you, Joe.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

Great to be with you. You've got a bunch of notes.

Bernie Sanders (0:17)

Not all that much.

Joe Rogan (0:18)

Have you prepared for this?

Bernie Sanders (0:20)

I am all prepared.

Joe Rogan (0:21)

Well, it's a good time for you to be in here, because the world's gone haywire.

Bernie Sanders (0:24)

Yes.

Joe Rogan (0:25)

Yeah, what are your thoughts on this?

Bernie Sanders (0:28)

I think I start off with Joe, trying to take a deep breath and doing what is not often done. Where are we as a country today? What's going well? What's not going well? I don't think we don't have that kind of basic discussion. To my mind, I think in America today, we are facing more serious crises than we have in the modern history of our country. This is a pivotal moment in American history, and what happens now will depend and determine the lives of our kids and future generations.

Joe Rogan (1:01)

What specifically concerns you?

Bernie Sanders (1:03)

I'll tell you what concerns me. The issue of wealth and power. I'm kind of old-fashioned and I believe in democracy. And I believe that everybody should have a good shot at living a decent life. And what I worry about right now, and this is an issue, Joe, and it's part of the problem that it just ain't talked about very much. And I applaud, by the way, you and the other podcasters who give people the time to really seriously discuss things rather than seven-second soundbites, you know. But if you take a look at where we are as a nation today, the system is not working. It's broken. It ain't working for ordinary human beings. So you have an America today where we have more income and wealth inequality than we've ever had in the history of this country. That's just the fact.

You have one man, Mr. Musk, owning more wealth than the bottom 52 percent of American families. One man, 52 percent of the American families. You got the top one percent, owning more wealth than the bottom 93 percent. You got CEOs, large corporations making 350 times what their work is making. Meanwhile, in this richest country in the history of the world, working class people are getting decimated. Today, and again, we don't talk about it in Congress for reasons that I hope I can get into. We don't talk about it in the corporate media. 60 percent, 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Now, I grew up in a family, I don't know your background, but I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck. And anyone who lives paycheck to paycheck understands that every single day is a struggle. You got to figure out how you feed the kids. Rents cost the housing in America off the charts, healthcare off the charts. So right now, as we talk, there are people worrying. My landlord is going to raise my rent by 20 percent. What the hell do I do? Where do I go? What schools do my kid go to? How do I buy decent food for my kids? My mother is ill. How do I afford prescription drugs for my mother? My car breaks down. So if you have money, no one thinks of it. Your car breaks down, go to the mechanic, you got to fix. You know what? A lot of people don't have a thousand bucks in the bank right now. If you don't have a thousand bucks, your car breaks down. How do you get to work? If you don't get to work, you get fired. If you get fired, your whole life is disrupted. Sixty percent of American...

Joe Rogan (3:29)

How much different is that than past generations?

Bernie Sanders (3:32)

It's that we've always had rich and poor, no question about it. It's worse now, Joe.

Joe Rogan (3:38)

What do you attribute that to?

Bernie Sanders (3:42)

I attribute it to decades-old attacks on the working class of this country. I attribute it to horrific trade agreements which have allowed corporate America to throw millions of workers out on the street and move to China, Mexico, and other low-wage countries. I attribute it to a corrupt political system in which billionaires have significant control over both political parties, so that, for example, right now in Washington, the national minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. So you got millions of workers today making $10, $12, $13 an hour. You tell me, how do people survive on $13 an hour? When we were kids, or at least when I was a kid, you work for a large company, you had something called a defined benefit pension plan. That means you work for me for 30 years. When you retire, you can get X hundreds of dollars a week. That's long gone. Corporations have gotten rid of that. So you got something like half of all the workers in America have nothing in the bank when they face retirement. So I think to answer your question, I think you got a rigged system controlled economically and politically by very, very wealthy and powerful people who could care less for working families. Now, I don't want to romanticize the old days because that would not be true. But there used to be a kind of a culture of, I was a boss and I ran a factory. I had a little bit of concern for you.