Sen. Bernie Sanders went on CNN and knocked
down questions that were nothing but thinly disguised repugican shrieking
points by using facts, truth, and the history of repugican
obstruction.
Video:
Transcript via CNN:
CUOMO:…Senator, great to have you on set here at
NEW DAY. Let me ask you this. What’s your answer to the basic question
of should the president do this?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I) VERMONT: Look, Chris, this
country faces enormous problems. Our middle class is disappearing. We
have more people living in poverty almost at any other time in the
history of this country, and massive wealth and income inequality. And
what we’ve seen over the last six years is repugicans doing hundreds
and hundreds of filibusters. We passed legislation. We got a majority
vote to raise the minimum wage, to do pay equity, to do a jobs program.
Republicans filibustered, filibustered, and filibustered.
I think what the president is finally saying, look,
immigration is a serious problem. We have got to do something. And if
you guys don’t do it — remember, the Senate last year passed a
reasonably good bill. What has the House done? Absolutely nothing. So
what the president is saying, this country has problems. I’m going to go
forward. If you pass legislation, I’ll rescind the executive order. But
do something, address problems.
CAMEROTA: Even if it means that by acting
unilaterally he threatens the relationship for any possible compromise.
If election meant that there was a new beginning that now they will once
again be at loggerheads, there could be a government shutdown, and all
the other ripple effect.
SANDERS: Threaten, compromise. Is that what you said?
CAMEROTA: Well —
SANDERS: For six years we are trying to get the
Republicans to support anything. Look, the repugicans — I have to say
I’m an independent. I’m not particularly partisan. But any objective
observer understands they have become a wingnut cabal, not a
center-right party. They have a wingnut base. They have an agenda can
which does not want to work with the president.
And I think what the president is saying, look,
we’ve got problems. We have got to move. To say that we’re going to
break the wonderful harmony and working relationship that we’ve had six
years, that did not exist.
CAMEROTA: It’s not that. It’s that they are
threatening shutdown, that they won’t work with Democrats and the
president if he were to do this.
SANDERS: Then the American people have to make a
choice. If they think the government shutdown is a response to the
enormous problems facing this country. Look, the American people in poll
after poll and on Election Day said we could raise the minimum wage. Do
you hear repugicans talking about that? The American people in poll
after poll say women should get paid the same amount of money as men. Do
you hear the repugicans talking about that? The American are disgusted
with Citizens United.
CUOMO: They heard something, though, senator,
because they just voted in the repugicans in a very big way. And I
think there’s a political calculation here to be made. You’re certainly
right about that. But there are a lot of lives in the balance.
What I don’t understand here is there’s an absence
of leadership by the party and president. And by the party I mean the
Democratic Party, because you can’t play the same game the Republicans
are. You don’t have the leverage. So you’re dealing with need of these
families being separated. Everybody should be able to agree that’s
horrible. How does the party that you caucus with and leader of the
country find a way to make that salable, which should not be so
difficult?
SANDERS: Chris, I agree with you. It should not be
so difficult. I think the vast majority of people in this country want
immigration reform. We passed it in the Senate. We have kids who are
born in this country that are going to see a situation if we don’t act
that their parents may be expelled.
CUOMO: It’s happened before. The shrub and
Reagan both did this. But here’s the difference. The difference was that
the Congress had been massaged in those two situations in the direction
of the ultimate reform, so that when the president signed these
executive orders stopping the families from being separated, Congress
undid it quickly. They were moving that way. That leadership, that
compromise has not been found here.
SANDERS: I don’t think it’s leadership and I don’t
think it’s compromise. The repugican cabal is today a very different
party than it was back then. That’s just the simple reality. And you pay
attention to this every day. Have you heard repugicans talking in a
serious way about immigration reform? They have not.
So the president again on all of these
issues, he is sitting there and saying, we have problems. We have got to
act. And what he has said over and over again is if you pass
legislation, I’ll rescind executive orders. Everybody knows executive
orders are not the best way to do things. We know that. But you have a
party now, I have to say this, which is really recalcitrant in terms of
wanting to do much.
Sen. Sanders went on to explain to the CNN hosts why
the Keystone pipeline is not a good idea, with host Chris Cuomo falsely
arguing that the pipeline would lower U.S. dependence on foreign oil
and create commerce.
The pro-repugican shrieking points were obvious. The
idea that President Obama and Democrats have been unwilling to
compromise. The false notion that Obama’s executive orders will poison
the well and make it impossible for repugicans to pass an immigration
bill. The whole mentality of Democrats lost so repugicans get to do
whatever they want. These repugican shriekking points were all reflected
in the questions that Sen. Sanders was asked.
Sanders knocked down every single repugican shrieking
points based question with facts and history. In the media’s eyes, the
six years of obstruction before the 2014 never happened. Sen. Sanders
(I-VT) was correct to point out that John Boehner has refused to allow a
vote on the Senate passed immigration reform bill.
The CNN interview demonstrated that the left is
going to be battling both a repugican majority in Congress and the a
corporate run media who will be cheering them on. Bernie Sanders brought
the truth to CNN, and the rest of the left could learn a valuable
lesson in how to handle the blame Obama media from the Vermont
Independent.
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