who want to hear senator sanders also out on the street. booktv has a large screen tv set up through miami-dade college. showing this event so there are people watching it there as well. and he's due to begin in just a minute or so you'll hear from mitch kaplan who is the owner of books and books bookstore and one of the founders of the miamibook festival he'll be helping with the introduction and questions. you'll hear from him in just a minute but we thought you might want to see the room see soflt folks and see some of the activity going on so i'm going to go now to the booktv room here at miami-dade college senator bernie sanders our revolution. ♪

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thank you very much. and there's just about five minutes between my welcome to you and senator sanders so thank you so much for being here. [applause] i'm l mal harrison and a pleasure to welcome you to the book fair and wouldn't be possible without the support of sponsors such as a knight foundation, degrout foundation, bachelor foundation and many, many other sponsors as i said. we also are very grateful to the friend of miami book fair international if you would wave one more time because i'd like to recognize you for your support.

and, of course, miami-dade college of convener of this oustanding literary gathering where so many students yes, let's applaud. [applause] so many miami-dade college students, faculty, and staff give of themselves and volunteer in various aspects of this fair to make it what it is. so thank you to miami-dade college as well. [applause] you will be able to purchase your own book senator sanders, book immediately outside of this room. so please take advantage of that following the presentation. but without further adieu i'd like to bring on someone who will make the formal introduction this evening. and he's none other than ronald, he wears many, many hats, he's a washington lawyer.

he's also the author of 11 plus books. while serving as a literary agent for over a hundred authors ing senator sanders. mr. gold has served in kennedy administration a special assistant. but i could go on and on in term was his many contributions civic life to the legal affairs of this nation. and to society overall. he lives now and travels peectly between kibis cane and washington, d.c. please help me welcome ronald goldfarb, thank you. [applause] there -- thank you. i know you haven't come here to see me so i'm going to do something that is very difficult for washington lawyers.

i'm going to speak very, very briefly. [laughter] before the election, i thought the my role was to warm up the house with white remarks like mentioning how bernie does a terrific imitation of larry david. [laughter] and how a better storyline for the election would have been for a kid from brooklyn rips rich kid from queens. [applause] but after the election a week ago, i decided it that ryan witty doesn't work and i'ves toed those notes away. because i know you all understand as i do that we're in a very frightening political season. bob dylan's line came back to me, it's not dark yet, but it's getting there. that said our speak or tonight does offer an individual ray of light.

with no money, no organization two years ago but with good ideas and an integrity that shines through as you'll see in his word he won 22 states including i would add wisconsin, and michigan. [applause] 13 and a half million votes, 46% of the delegates. 2.8 million done rs who gave small amounts of money but great passion for his campaign. most interesting to me is that 70% of the people who voted in the election on the democratic side voted for bernie sanders. and that group -- that, that group is growing to be the largest group of voters

in the country and here's something that you probably don't know. while i was driving on a bus to an airport after bernie book sold i got a call from st. maarten colleague and their business holt a publish of book for teenager 14 to 9 and said we would love to adapt bernie's book for our audience and that is going to happen too. [applause] >> connect for 83-year-old book lover top help a 74-year-old politician. make that visionary, lead on a new generation of voters. and i just want to add with one last that is i happen had to be watching blitzer a few days ago interviewing the jane sanders,

and he trying to make -- go ahead she deserve it is. trying to make the story where there wasn't one who had said you've done so well in the election and your book is a best seller. does that mean your husband is going to run in 2020? [applause] jainl's answer was, wrong question wolf, ask me that in 2019. we should be talking about 2017! very honored as they say now in his colleague say in the senate i'm going to yield my table to the great senator from vermont, who is going to tell us all what he will be and what we should be doing in 2017. the great, bernie sanders. [applause]

thank you all. thank you all for coming out. thank you. as i think many of you have heard me say a million times, this is not about bernie, it is about you and us. [applause] let me thank you all for coming out. let me miami-dade college for host the event and ron for his very generous introduction. i want to talk, obviously, about

the book, but i suspect or wanted two other things on your mind. that we'll talk about that as well. all right, let's get going. point number one, hillary clinton ended up getting million and a half more votes than donald trump, don't forget about that. if anyone tells you that mr. trump has a mandate to go forward with some of his very reaction ideas tell them that he lost the popular vote for a million and a half votes. number two this is also important and i want all of you to understand that i've been around this country and i've been in this business for a while when i'm telling you is the truth. on virtually not all but on virtually every major issue facing this country, whether it is raising the minimum wage to a living wage, whether it is pay equity for women who are now making 79 cent ares on the

declare compared to men. whether it is creating millions of decent paid jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. whether it is criminal justice reform, immigration reform on all of those issues -- and many more -- campaign finance reform, on all of these issues, guess what? vast majority of the american people are on our side. [applause] and when somebody goes and tells you that republicans have some kind of mandate to cut social security and medicare and medicaid were to give tax breaks to billionaires or to fig mother the scientific overwhelming scientific evidence regarding climate change and tell your friends who tell you that, they are dead wrong.

let me just suggest to you why i think trump did as well as he did and then suggest to you in a very broad sense where i think we have to go and we'll get into the book. what -- is going on in this country in terms of the pain that many people are feeling is not reported in the media and it is not dealt with in the halls of congress. tunny thing in the book you'll notice there's a chapter where i talk about the corporate media something i'll talk a little bit about tonight. and it turns out and i say this not you know -- breaking here. but turns out somebody did a study and they said that over the course i think it was of the year, two-thirds of the discussion on sunday morning news shows about poverty was from bernie sanders. [applause] the point is not he, the point

is where the hell is everybody else? i mean how do you -- [applause] so what you have in our country today is a lot of pain and a lot of suffering that we don't talk about in the congress with few exceptions but certainly not on nbc or cbs or the media. and you've got millions of people out there who are saying to themselves, who hears my pain? who know it is that i am alive? who gives a damn about me? and one of the reasons that i'm going to do everything that i can to reform the democratic party is that i want the democratic party to hear the pain. [applause] i want to just run through and follow follow me for a second.

right now in miami, right now in burlington, vermont, there are single moms go to work, they need good quality child care. they make 40, 50,000 dollars a year maybe or maybe less for child care cost $10 or 15,000. how do you have decent quality child care if it cost $15 or 20,000 a year and you're making 50,000 a year? or o less? who talks about that issue? seen it lately seeing politicians talking about it? no, you don't. we're the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a right. today in america, with despite the gains of the affordable care act, 28 million people have no health insurance at all. and many of you in tens of millions of americans who do

have health insurance have deductibles and copayments that are so high that you don't go to the doctor when you should. and then we see thousands of people dying every single year because they walk into the doctors office when it is too late and doctor are says why didn't you come in when you first got your symptom and person says i didn't have any insurance or i affordable deductible we lose thousands of people every single year. right now in america, one out of five people who goes to a doctors office because they're sick and they get a prescription you know what one out of those five people cannot afford to fill the prescription. elderly people here in miami and in vermont all over o this country, you know what they do, they cut their prescription pills in half. it's a bad thing to do. because they can't afford the medicine they need and every

day, drug companies are jacking the price for one reason alone. because they can get away with that. who is hearing, who is paying attention to the people who can't afford the medicine they desperately need. let me tell you a story about how corrupt the system is. i was out in california ksmg weeks ago working on a proposition there called proposition 61. most of you don't know it. what it was was an effort on part of the people of california. to lower cost of prescription dplution their state. anyone want to take a guess how much the pharmaceutical company spent in opposition to that proposition? take a guess. not a billion -- 131 million. 48 as i understand it 47, 48% of the people voted for it. it lost. after the industry spent 131

million dollar and that raises not on the issue of the high cost of prescription drugs what else does it raise, the issue of finance campaign reform and bring about any change in this country when the drug companies and insurance companies and koch brothers and other billionaires are able to spend unlimited sums of money? when donald trump talks about taking on the establishment there are workers out there who are making nine, $10 an hour. listen and he said he's going to raise their wages and they're making $10 you can not live on $10 an hour. almost half of the older workers in america people 55 or older have no money in the bank for when they retire. you've got that? you're 55 60 going to retire in

five years. you've got no money in the bank you're getting sick. you need health care. how do you retire with no money in the bank in millions of people scared to death about going in to retirement. you've got young people today right, young people who dwell in high school. they can't even afford to go to college. and then you've got others leaving college 40, 50, 60 thorks in debt making 12, 14 an hour and they don't know how they can pay off that debt. i was in during the course of the campaign and one thing i did during the book i talked about some of the places they went to and i trieded to go to places that other candidates often don't go. spie went to mcdowel in west virginia in southern part of west virginia and in that county, and counties in that

state and kentucky and elsewhere, turns out that people today unbelievably are now dying at a younger age than their parents. the whole drift of modern society in american around the world is as a result of public health as a result of medical break throughs and we've seen great breakthroughs on cancer, other illnesses, people live longer lives. there are millions of americans today in various parts of this country working class people who are dying at a younger age than their parents. they are dying as a result of drug addiction. of alcoholism, and of suicide. in other words, the despair is so great among people who are trying to get by and nine, $10 an hour worried about their kids. they are going nowhere.

and life overcomes them and they turn to drugs and alcohol and suicide. and donald trump said, i know that. i went to pine ridge native american reservation. because i tried to focus some attention only the plight, on the tragedy that bases many native american communities throughout our country. people who have been lied to, cheated, poem who have been ignored. in pine ridge in south dakota of life expectancy as i understand it is equivalent to guatemala a poor third world country. you've suicide very high unemployment rampant. but mexican abuse, terrible. i was in baltimore, maryland, thousands and tens of thousands

of people are addicted to heroin. and no treatment is available for them. i was in new york city, went to the public housing projects there. they have a back log of 17 billion dollars to repair public housing in new york city. 17 billion dollars people are living in dilapidated public housing and on and on goes what's my point? my point is, if you think that trump won simply because everybody who voted for him is a racist, zen phone you would be mistaken yet, yes there are those people who did vote for trump for those reasons. but i think what trump managed to tap is the anger in the frustration that so many people feel who are ignored about who are forgotten, who are suffering. and our job i will do everything

in my pour a few days i became a official member of the democratic leadership. [applause] and that means, you know, what i intend to do in that position is to make it very clear that the democratic party cannot have too masters it cannot bow down to wall street and drug companies and corporate america. [applause] and then tell the working people of this country who for the last 40 years have seen a shrinking of the middle-class. million was whom are working longer who ares for low wages. you can't tell them that we're on their side when we're hustling money from wall street.

so that democratic party has got to make it clear which side it's on and i'm going to do everything i can to make certain that it is on the side of the working families of this country. [applause] now, during the course of his campaign and before his campaign donald trump has said and done some horrific things. regarding minorities and immigrants. i want all of you not to forget that before mr. trump was even a candidate for president, with he was a leader of the so-called bertha movement and do not mistake for one second what that so-called bertha movement was about. it was a racist attempt to junders undermine legitimate sift first african-american president in our history. that's what it was.

now, you can disagree all you want with barack obama. it's called democracy. but it is not acceptable to try to undermine his legitimacy as trump did by suggesting that he was not born in the united states of america. [applause] and i hope very much that mr. trump who is nobody's fool, i hope very much that he understands the damage that he has done to our country internally and around the world. not only with his disrespect to the african-american community. but the ugly language he has used on mexican americans. believed that we should ban people of one of the largest religions in the world mumples from coming into this country.

the language that he's used which i cannot even quote regarding women and attitude towards women. i don't have to tell anybody here that for hundreds of years, from before this country became a country when the first settlers came here, and treated the native american people so horrifically from then through slavery, through sexism. through homophobia, through the attacks and prejudices against the irish and italian and jews and every nationality that came here, the struggle for 200 years has been a fight against the discrimination. a fight to power phrase dr. martin luther jr. that we judge people not by the color of their skin. but by their character as human beings.

that has been the struggle. [applause] and when we remember, when we remember that 50, 60 years ago african-americans didn't even have the right to vote when we remember 100 years ago, women were not running for president. they didn't have the right stroat. they couldn't get the education or the jobs they wanted. when 30 years ago no time at all -- people in the gay community, hid their sexual assault because of the retribution that were to occur to them if they stood up and said that they were gay. we have a right as a nation -- to be proud in how far we have come now we've got a long way to go. racism, homophobia exist no question about it. but we do have a right to be proud.

that we have gone a long, long way in fighting all forms of descridges and, in fact, what i can tell you without the slightest hesitancy that the younger generation of today is the least racist, the least sexist and least homophobic in the history of this country. [applause] and i say all of that, i say all of that because i want you for a moment to reflect, reflect upon those very brave people who stood up for civil rights long before martin luther king junior did and way back hundreds, 150 years ago people were thrown in jail, beaten, lynch fighting for justice think about the women who went on hunger strikes who went to jail. who died -- and demanding that women not be second class citizens, the struggle of the gay community, et cetera, et cetera.

we have come a long way and what i say to mr. trump we are not going backwards. [applause] and -- of all of us -- all of us who know history understand that it is the easiest thing in the world to a demagogue to pick on minorities. when people are hurting and in pain, it is very easy to say there is your enemy. some guy who is picking tomatoes here in florida making $8 an hour.

there's your enemy. or a little grl -- girl who wear a scarf there is your enemy. or some african-american down the street there is your enemy. our job, and it is the job of the minority in this country to stand with the minorities. [applause] ...

i am a member of the u.s. senate committee on the environment and in that capacity i have spoken to scientists not only throughout our country but all over the world. the almost unanimous conclusion by the scientific community is that climate change is real, it is caused by human activity and it is already doing devastating harm in this country and throughout the world.

the debate is over. [applause] and if we do not get our act together, what the scientists are telling us is that the situation will deteriorate significantly. there will be more drought. there will be more floods. in miami there will be more rising sea levels. i think you are beginning to experience that already. there'll be more acidification of the ocean and the incredible impact that have on marine life. there will be more global -- if people fight over limited resources such as water and land to grow their crops. i hope that mr. trump

understands that it is far more important to listen to the scientific community than it is to the fossil fuel industry. [applause] in the senate and in the house you are going to find many members standing up and fighting as hard as we can against some of the ugly proposals that mr. trump raise turing be campaigned and may bring forward as president but at the end of the day in my view, and i speak only for myself, we are going to win this battle not in the halls of congress where we are outnumbered, we are going to win this battle in grassroots america. [applause]

and what that means, this is not rhetoric. trust me, this is a fact and it's something that every american has got to learn. democracy is not a spectator sport. [applause] every person in this room is a powerful person if you choose to exercise your power. your power is not just voting once every two years. your power is three under 65 days a year. [applause] and your power is not just running for school board and city council and on up but your power is figuring out how you deal with problems bringing people together because at the end of the day when millions of americans stand on the side of progress, stand on the side of

ending discrimination, stand on the side of workers rights, stand on the side of protecting our environment, when we stand up and when we are involved, when we fight back no power on earth, not donald trump, not the koch brothers, not anybody will stop us and that is what we have to do. [applause] let me say a few words about the book which is why i came here in the first place. the first part of the book deals with the campaign. those of you who are interested in politics will find it interesting. we talk about why i decided to run against the sensible

opposition of my wife, jane who is sitting out here someplace. [applause] she being smarter than me said why in god's sake what you want to do this? and by the way one of the things that we mentioned in the book that she worried about and i worried about is that if we won, what would happen the day after? what would wall street to? what with corporate america to? would they punish the american people for having voted for me? that was one of her worries but an fortunately we didn't have to worry about that. i wish we would have but we didn't. anyhow we talked about the campaign. we started off with virtually nothing.

i know something about politics my own state of vermont and by the way when it gets a little hot here, come and visit us. we are a very beautiful state. we are a small state. we have 625,000 people and i know how to campaign in my own state. in my last election i got 71% of the vote so we know how to do that pretty well. but running for u.s. senate in vermont is very different than running for president of the united states. we started off knowing virtually nothing. we talk about what we learn and how we progress and what i did, very often candidates say when they asked if can run and they are talking to people, actually wasn't the case with me. what we did is we went around the country. did people really want a candidate who is prepared to take on the economic establishment, the establishment

as i went around the country as somebody who was not very well-known at that point what i found immediately all over the country, hundreds of people were coming out and yes they were sick and tired of establishment politics and establishment economics. finally we decided we would do it and we went forward. what we saw as when you think about it, what do you do? we decided for a number of reasons that we would make rallies meetings like this although a little bit larger than this. the cornerstone of the campaign, because for a variety of reasons a lot of politicians use people like yourselves right now is kind of a backdrop. understand what i'm saying?

you are just a backdrop for the tv cameras but i don't like that. i like talking to people. i like speaking and i like looking you in the eye. i like answering questions. [applause] what we found is we went around the country that more and more people were coming out. it is the bit of a mind blowing experience looking out and arena in portland oregon with the trail blazers nba team in looking at it 28,000 people. there were people outside so the other thing that we try to do, we interested politically you can run in the primaries we have a pretty crazy system in that everybody in politics knows that the first states are very important in the first states are iowa and a week later new hampshire. so what we understood is what

every politician who runs for president understands. if you do poorly in those states you kind of get pushed aside and you don't last very much longer. we had to focus on iowa and new hampshire and what we did which i love very much, if i had the opportunity in the small state like iowa to go to 101 rallies and meetings just like this, and meetings exactly like this all over the state of iowa and it ended up that i ended up talking personally face-to-face with something like -3/4 of the people who ended up voting for me in the democratic caucus. isn't that amazing? [applause] that is old-fashioned politics. that is old-fashioned grassroots politics. you talk to people and then i go and vote. in new hampshire we talked to a whole lot of people and we did very well. i want to point out a few, we

got off to a good start but it's hard to do that when you have six or seven states coming up on the same day and that became hard for us. the other point that i would relate to as well is to run a national campaign for president you need to raise a lot of money we had no idea how we were going to raise money. suddenly, it was just unbelievable, day one people started sending in money. lewis away. we ended up, we ended up having 2.8 separate individuals contributing an average of 27.-- dollars apiece to the campaign. [applause] and many of those people -- and the other thing it was almost difficult to read and it really

made you want to cry is it turns out that a majority of the people who contributed to the campaign, it turns out were below median family income. they were poor people getting unemployment. they were all people on social security. the majority of people were below the median income level. we were being supported and that is a very humbling experience. [applause] it is one thing to go to wall street and to walk out of a fund-raiser with $10 million. it is another thing to get checks for $10.15 for people who are on social security. that was an extraordinarily gratifying experience. [applause] if you would ask me, people say well you know what was the most

significant thing in the campaign? on a personal note i will tell you what it was. it was doing rallies all over the country and the last day was june 7 in california in five otstates. we spent a lot of time in caliph arnirunning up and down the state. we held rallies in very rural areas where presidential candidates never go and on a beautiful evening there would e-5 or 10,000 people coming out, often young latino kids, african-american kids, white kids, native american kids in the book out in the crowd of such a diverse and such beautiful young people who have such hopes for this country, that is what inspired me then and that is what inspires me today and that is what should inspire all of you. [applause]

what i want you to know, what i want you to know about shoog results notwithstanding there are millions of people in this country you love this country passionately who want to see this country become what we all know it can become. i had the opportunity, privilege to actually see and meet with so many those people and that is something that i will live with for the rest of my life. the first half of the book deals with the campaign. if you are interested in politics i think you'll find it interesting. the second half does something a little bit different. what it says is how do we go forward? we are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. that's who we are today and there is no excuse for 43 million people living in poverty, no excuse for us having the highest rate of childhood

poverty of almost any major country on earth. no excuse for having more income in wealth inequality than any other major country on earth where the top one tenth of 1% now owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%, where people in florida are working two or three jobs and 52% of all new income goes to the top 1%. so what i did in the second half of the book is i took a hard look at what i believe are the major issues facing this country and working with some other people we wrote down what we think the future means in terms of going for it. where do we go from here? it's one thing to say well isn't this too bad that it's another thing to say okay, what do we do? let me just take a few minutes to talk about what i consider to be some of the major issues and one of the goals of our

campaign, which i think we pretty much succeeded in was to force debate on issues that politicians in general do not talk about and that the corporate media almost never talks about. [applause] one of those issues, one of those issues is my fear that this country is moving very rapidly into an oligarchic warmoth society. now i think most americans may not even know what that word oligarchic means but it is a word that we can bet on. start understanding because that's exactly where we are moving toward. what does that mean? what it means is you have a relatively small number of very wealthy people, alien airs through increasing the control not only our economic life but our political life as well. it means that on wall street for

examples you have the six largest financial institutions, just six, that have assets of some $10 trillion which is equivalent to 58% of the gdp of the united states america, six financial institutions which issue something like two-thirds of our credit cards and one third of the mortgages, six financial institutions. means and i talk about this in a whole chapter that it turns out you've got six major media conglomerates in this country, time warner and cbs and others that determine about how 90%, they control about 90% of the media in america in determining what people see, hear and read. when you turn on the tv and you think you have 100 channels out

there and you think maybe 100 different companies on them, they don't. they are owned by relatively few, large conglomerates which are controlled by bigger entities. the function of media is not to educate the american people. the function of corporate media is to make as much money as it possibly can. i think what we saw in this last campaign, what we saw in this last campaign is that over 90% of the discussion you saw on television was not about the issues that impact your lives, it was about political gossip or about mr. trump or mrs. clinton, not about the american people. it was about pulling in campaign funds and how much money people raised in the terrible things they were said about each other.

we need a media among other things that starts talking about the real issues facing the american people, not just the candidates. [applause] and we have a chapter that talks not just about oligarchy and where we are but how we end a wrecked economy. what does a rigged economy mean? it means that over the last 20 or 30 years there has been a massive transfer of wealth into into -- and that transfer has gone from your pocket or the pocket of the middle class into the pockets of the top one tenth of 1%. a massive transfer of wealth. we talk about how do we create an economy to paraphrase pope francis which is based on moral principles rather than greed and these are some of the things that have to be done.

we have got to determine if principle in our economy that if you work 40 hours a week you do not live in poverty. that means raising the minimum wage to a living wage. [applause] we raise the minimum wage to a living wage of $13 an hour, millions of people would be taken out of poverty and with the able to live life of dignity , spending time with their kids, not under incredible stress. it means that in the year 2016 when we talk about jobs and the economy, we have got to end the disgrace of women making 79 cents on the dollar compared to men. [applause] it means when we talk about the

economy that we have to understand that the unemployment figures you see once a month come out from the government, the official unemployment rate which nationally is about why%, is different than the real unemployment rate in this country which is over 9% including, if you include people who are working part-time and they want to work full time or people in high unemployment areas who have given up looking for work so you have in real terms 9% of our population unemployed in that needs we need a massive jobs program. we should be hiring teachers, not firing teachers. [applause] we can hire a heck of a lot of people doing the important work of childcare which today is dysfunctional. [applause] we should be rebuilding our

troubling infrastructure, roads, bridges, water systems. [applause] jane and died during the campaign were in flint michigan and we had one of the most emotional evenings i think that we have ever had in our lives and that is talking to a mom whose daughter had been gregarious and bright and doing well in school but after drinking the lead in the water became a child in special education who have a hard time remembering simple things. when you talk to a mom who has gone through that it takes a lot out of you. but it is not just flint michigan that is struggling with clean water. there are hundreds of communities all over this country including some in my own state of vermont. the point is that in america we once had the best cutting-edge

infrastructure in the world, the best bridges in the best roads, the strongest rail system the best levees in the best dams. that is no longer the case. by heavily investing in our structure we can't create millions of good paying jobs and that is exactly what we have to do. when we talk about the economy, common sense tells us all and we are here an excellent community college, tells us that if we are going to compete effectively in a highly competitive global economy, we need to have the best-educated workforce in the world. [applause] that kind of a no-brainer and we once did. the book goes into that. we had a higher percentage of college graduates than any country on earth. that is no longer the case. we are way down in the gap

between us and other countries is growing wider. how do you have a workforce that can handle new jobs which require a lot of technology and advanced learning, how do you have a workforce that can do those things if we have hundreds of thousands of bright young people who can't even afford to go to college and others who are leaving school deeply in debt. what the book talks about is the need to get our national priorities right which says that ilion heirs like donald trump and his friends should start paying their fair share of taxes. [applause] that corporations, profitable corporations making billions a year in prophets should no longer be able to stash their

money in the cayman islands or bermuda and not pay a dime in federal taxes. [applause] that wall street speculation should be taxed and that when you do that, you suddenly find that you do have the money you need to make public colleges and universities tuition free. [applause] and to substantially lower the burden of student debt on millions of people. [applause] so what the book says is kind of commonsensical. who is going to argue against the fact that we need a well-educated workforce if we are going to succeed as an economy and as a nation? it's hard to argue. who will argue that the cost of college is unaffordable for so many people? who will argue that millions of

our people when they leave school in 50,000-dollar debt, 100,000-dollar debt, go to graduate, middle school three and a thousand dollar debt, who will argue that is not insane that we should be encourage in people to get the education they need, not discouraging people. [applause] again, this is just common sense we don't talk about it enough so the question is how do you make college affordable and how do you make public colleges and universities tuition free? there's a program out there that i played an active role in expanding. very few people have heard of it. anyone heard of the national service -- it's a great program and what it says is if you are a doctor, a dentist, you have of

poor -- a problem with affordable dentistry in florida, if you are a doctor a dentist a psychologist or a nurse, if you are prepared when you graduate school to serve in a medically underserved area the government will forgive your student debt. [applause] and that works. the program works very very well. think we should expand the concept to say in a time when we desperately need good teachers and childcare workers, people in law enforcement that if you are prepared to serve in the public we will forgive your debt. [applause] or talks about another issue that you hear very little discussion about in the media or in the halls of congress.

simple question. how many major countries on earth do not aaron t. health care to all of their people? anyone know the answer? just one and you are living in it. so the question that we ask ourselves, which is never on television, how does that happen that we end up spending far, far more per of that, i live 50 miles away from the canadian border. we spend about double what the canadians do per-capita on health care and they cover every man, woman and child. we spend almost three times more than they do in the united kingdom or france and germany and our health care outcomes determined that life expectancy in terms of child and that mortality or in many cases worse than many other countries.

well that is a question we have to put on the table and the answer as to why we are the only major country not to guarantee health care to all there i would hope and medicare for all program. the reason has everything to do. [applause] the reason has everything to do with the power of the insurance companies and the drug companies and the medical equipment suppliers. they love the current system. last year the top five drug companies in america made $50 billion in prophets. the top 10 drug company executives made over $300 million in compensation. it is a great system for them. it's not such a great system for ordinary americans. we have very clear language of how we go from here to there. we create a medicare for all

single-payer system. it will save middle-class families money, guaranteed quality care to all of our people. that's an issue we have got to put on the table. [applause] a question, and again these are questions that we need to discuss. why does our great country, the united states of america, have more people in jail than any other country on earth? why? there are a lot of reasons why, and the look tries to answer that question, why is it the other country like china, four times our size and population, a communist authoritarian company that doesn't tolerate consent -- dissent very well and we have more people in jail than china. why is it that over the last number of years state after

state, my state california, probably your state, have been investing enormous amounts of money in jails and incarceration while cutting back on education and job training for young people? [applause] and i think most americans know we need reform in local police departments around the country. i was the mayor for eight years. i worked very closely with the police department. the average police officer has an enormous leap difficult job, works hard and it is a tough job but we need the kind of training which tells police officers that lethal force is the last response, not the first response. [applause] we need to be thinking about

something that is so obvious. we lock people up and then they come out at jail and i remember we did a forum on criminal justice in iowa and we had a couple of guys there who had been in jail, spent time in jail and one guy said the day before of his release, he didn't know is going to be released, someone came to him and said you are getting out of here tomorrow. here's a check for $75, good luck and then we are shocked that so many people to go to jail and up going back to the environment that got them in jail in the first place and are shocked with a high rate of recidivism. it's clear to everybody that people who are in jail need job training, they need education, they need decent housing. we need to make sure that they don't end up back in jail where we spend 50 or $60,000 a year car shooting them. it makes a lot more sense to invest in housing. [applause]

one of the major issues that i'm quite confident that congress will be dealing with after mr. trump is inaugurated with the immigration. now in my view when you have 11 million people who are undocumented, i believe that the time is long overdue for comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship. [applause] it appears that mr. trump's point of view is somewhat different and this is going to be a major major struggle that i will tell you that during the campaign i talked to a number of young latino boys and girls and i talked to kids who had tears running down their cheeks, who are scared to death that one day coming out of school and going

home they are going to line that there dad or mother had been deported. in my view we need an immigration policy which unites families, not divides them. [applause] so those are some of the issues that we discussed in the book and the bottom line is that for me, democracy in a civilized society is not a complicated idea. what it really means is that people come together like we do here this evening, and we say okay what are the problems facing the country and we may disagree. some made think this is a problem and i don't think it's a major problem and so forth but that's part of the process and then we say okay these are the problems. what is the best way to go forward and resolve them? it's not complicated that tweet too much too little of that.

what campaigns are about, there are people who make millions of dollars. researching me for the last five years, researching everything that i say. it's called opposition researching and guys make a lot of money doing it. figure out how you can come up with a 30-second ad to destroy somebody else. how you come up with ads that are complete lies. our job as citizens is to demand a democracy of a higher level, to not accept that. [applause] so if there is anything i hope you get out of the book it is that i am not looking back, i am looking forward. [applause]

i believe there is a will in this country. we have just got to bring people together to create a nation in which we have an economy that works for all of us, that we do not forget people in small rural town's who are living in despair, people in inner cities who are in trouble, that we create an economy that works for all of us and not just the 1%. i believe there is a will to create a political system in which billionaires do not buy elections but in which we have a vibrant democracy of one person one vote. [applause] so i want to thank you all for being here. think we are now going to work on some questions which you have submitted so how do we go from here?

somebody is coming up. do i hear somebody? here you are. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. thank you senator sanders for being here. this is her 33rd miami book fair and i want to thank you for this remarkable talk that you just gave. thank you so very much. [applause] now what is really interesting and i probably had maybe 300 questions and the most interesting thing is you have answered each and every one of them in the talk that you gave so i'm left with one question.

what is your favorite film? [laughter] in a more serious thing, what is your favorite film? >> i'm thinking, i don't know. >> in a more serious vein probably the question that was the most prevalent is a question that has been talked about all throughout the book fair and that is given everything you talk about in all the important issues that you mentioned and given the political reality we find ourselves in now what can we all do? >> i think, and i know everybody works hard. i saw this on the campaign trail, people are exhausted. people work long hours and mom works and dad works and they don't have time for the kids and marriages are suffering as a result. i think in these difficult times we are going to have to rethink

our relationship to public life into politics and to figure out ways and for each person will be different and for each community will be different but what i said a moment ago is what i believe, that when people stand together around any and all issues your voices will be heard you will have an impact. you cannot be ignored. politicians are many things. they're not and i will give an example. a couple of years ago virtually all republicans -- and some democrats wanted to cut social security. a number of us worked very hard with senior organizations around the country. i was able to submit a petition with i believe over 2 million names on it all over the country. people stood up. disabled veterans, seniors stood

up, people with disabilities stood up and said you cannot cut social security programs just on tv show a few months ago and a woman called into the show instead i'm scared to death. i'm barely making it now and they are talking about cutting social security. we stopped those cuts and during the campaign the discussion was on how we expand social security we did it because millions of people became involved in the process. now more than ever, you have got to pick your fights. you have to pick your fights and figure out how you can be effective but think about it differently than you did yesterday. you can play a role in transforming this country. i believe that if this country, the people in this country tell mr. trump, sorry we are going to transform our energy system because we have a moral responsibility for our kids and our grandchildren to protect this planet that's what you're

going to do. we can do that. [applause] but in all of those things we have got to be very smart that we have to understand we are looking at people with incredible amounts of money, people who manipulate the system and people who owned the media. tough stuff but we have a responsibility to do that right now. c is there a resource that people in miami can tap into to find out which groups they ought to be able to give their support to whether it's time or financing? >> there are a million organizations out there. i do want to mention one and not the other but i mentioned also earlier the democratic party, hope to make it a party that all of you feel comfortable about being in. [applause]

>> i know that you have supported representative allison to be the head of the dnc. can you talk a little bit about that? >> as i said earlier in politics you have to make fundamental decisions and the decisions really are not complicated. which side are you on? are you on the side of the 1% that is doing phenomenally well, the 1% to make an extraordinary amount of campaign contributions , are you on their side or are you going to be on the side of working people and families today who are struggling hard just to keep their heads above water? are you going to be on the side of the homeless veteran who was sleeping out on the streets of miami or vermont? whose side are you on? and i hope the democratic party finally makes that decision and when they do i think they are

going to find millions of people getting involved and i think they are going to turn around politics in this country and become once again dominate power power -- dominate party. [applause] >> someone from the audience points out that former representative dingle from michigan to be something out and i hate to use the word tweets buddy tweeted something out and he said forget the baskets, the deplorables are finding their way into the cabinet. how in a realpolitik way do you feel the senate might go --. >> let me say this about deplorables. i really dislike that expression very much. [applause] look, no question that some of trump's supporters are racist and sexist and and about that but that is not the majority of

those people. one of the things that happens in this country is that people who sit down with a 200-dollar bottle of wine and a 500-dollar dinner have not a clue about what's going on in the real world. [applause] and the people who get their hands dirty and may not have a college education. my parents didn't go to college. doesn't make them deplorable. we we have got to reach out and they have got to understand that the republican party that wants to give tax breaks to billionaires and many of whom want to cut social security medicare and medicaid, that is not their party. >> so how is a senator and i know how we as citizens can probably move but do you have, given what we have seen so far

from the president-elect, how do we make sure we protect the first amendment for a free press , the first amendment rights for free press and what do we do about it? >> how do you protect all of our rights? [applause] and the answer is if people are strong and are prepared to fight back we will win. if not, the future may be somewhat bleak. so my message is that no matter what the issue is, whether it's constitutional rights, whether it is the economy, whether it is the attack on immigrants or on minorities, we have got to mobilize our people and stand firm, defend the constitution and make certain that our people get involved so that we create a government and an economy that works for everybody and not just

the 1%. there's nothing easy. takes a lot of work but again i want to at a time when many people are depressed politically , think back, think back, think that to win some of us were still alive but the segregation and racism that existed in parts of this country. think about the role that women played 100 years ago. people struggled and they made progress. that was true then and that is true today. [applause] >> without putting you on the spot the next most popular question was will you run in 2020? [applause] >> it's not the right question. because we have a struggle

tomorrow. we don't want to get hung up and i say this in all humidity -- humility of a thank you so much for your support, it's not for me. we have a struggle tomorrow. our job is to educate, to mobilize people. four years from now is a very long time. we have got better things to worry about today. [applause] >> you talk about universal health care and it's something that so many of us believe in. what do you think the straightest path to get that is at this point? >> the problem lies in a corrupt campaign finance system and the first thing we have got to do is overturn citizens united. [applause] and in my view move the public funding of elections. [applause]

what we also have got to do, this worries me very much direct way related to health care or the environment or anything else, is we have to pay a lot of attention and fight back against voter suppression. [applause] their art cowardly republican governors all over this country who are afraid of free open and democratic elections and they are trying to make it harder for young people, for old people and people of color to participate in the political process and be tough to resist that and move toward a nation in which everybody 18 years of age or older who is a citizen has the right to vote end of discussion. [applause] and when we do that we will be able -- if we do that we will be able to take on the insurance companies and the drug companies. they are the impediment to a

national health care system. they want to maintain a health care system in which they can make hundreds of millions of dollars a year in profits and our job is to tell them that the function of health care, a health care system is to provide quality care to all people in the most cost-effective way, not to make drug companies and insurance companies make billions of dollars a year in profits. [applause] >> it's interesting because the next question was someone from the audience pointing out that florida has 1.7 million former felons whose votes were suppressed in florida. >> absolutely. florida is think is one of the worst states. in vermont when our state has done and a few other states have done, we have done what was right and that is we said that if you served your time in jail

you paid your debt to society, you had your democratic rights. [applause] but when we talk about voter suppression, that is certainly one of the areas that we have got to focus on. if you have served your time you have the right to regain your ability to participate in the vote. >> do you expect big fights in the senate over the supreme court nomination? [laughter] i know the answer i think to that. >> the answer is of course. >> you don't know who the nominee is. >> i think it is fair to say it is based on not only what we fear who might be the nominee or

at least the politics of the person who might be the nominee but we come into that with the reality that republicans in the senate and the leadership ignore the constitution and refused to even allow for hearings of president obama's nominee. all of you know the constitution is not ambiguous about this. the president has the right to nominate somebody and the senate has the right to hold hearings and determine whether the person is qualified. the republicans said obama is president and we don't want to have in the hearings that also i think that background probably mr. trump's nominee will not win the most enthusiastic response from the democratic caucus. [applause] >> this is the way some of the much younger folks in the

audience are feeling and this question comes from a 13-year-old. what can we do to keep trump under controlled? [laughter] i think it's a very interesting question. >> again, all of these questions and trust me it's not just people in this room and 13-year-old kids, it is people all over this country are worried. the answer again beating a dead horse here is we have to rethink our role in our democracy. that is if there are actions that are taken that we think are unconstitutional or simply bad or unfair, we have got to stand up, mobilize and fight back. that is called democracy. we can do that. [applause] and that is what we have got to do. >> we will just take two more

questions. the first one will be, can we take you to dinner? including jane. [applause] this is from jim and lily in the audience. >> in vermont we often have food so maybe next time we will supply the food a week and i'll have dinner together. >> actually more serious question is what is your feeling about the electro-college? >> as i begin my remarks hillary clinton got we think and in california takes them forever to count votes. i don't know why that is so, it does but we think she will have ended up with 1.5 to 2 million votes over trumps. if democracy you assume if you have more votes in your opponent you win. this is not the case and this obviously happened with al gore. may have something to do with the state of florida not win.

that's number one. am i comfortable with the fact that somebody wins more votes than her opponent and his father bought -- and not berated? i'm uncomfortable with that. number two maybe as a politician i see this more, we have 50 states in this country and every one of these states have serious problems. what has happened in the last number of elections, everybody knows there are 15, 16 battleground states florida being one of them. you in the state are a whole lot of mr. trump acus everybody knew was a battleground state. the same thing with iowa and the same thing with michigan and the same thing with ohio wisconsin etc.. meanwhile guess what there are 35 other states in this country who very rarely see a candidate for president who very rarely have their issues being

discussed, there needs being discussed. we are an a nation of some 320 million people living in 50 states. politics and all due respect to florida and the other states should not just be about 15 or 16 states. it should. about 50 states. [applause] >> you know you brought an energized so many people that i think the last question to ask after a very difficult week of hearing so many speakers being so fearful and concerned about where the future lies, what hope can you give us, given all that you have seen and all that you know and all of that? >> i can give you a lot of hope and i think again this country,

if you study our own history, there've been very dark periods. i don't have to relate to anybody in this room about what people in this country are done to native americans, african-american people, latinos in the struggle of the community and so on and so forth. people came together and they made life better. 100 years ago children were working at rectory sluicing their fingers and we said no that can't go on. public education didn't come out at nowhere, came because people thought for it so what i'm saying is these are dark times. i'm thinking back right now in vermont a couple of years ago they showed a film. december 8, 1941, that was the day after pearl harbor and president roosevelt goes before congress to declare war in japan

and a while later germany. the military of this commentary was not a prepared to fight wars in the east and worsen the west. we didn't have the resources to do that and get a united country two and a half years later for all intents and purposes by the end of 1940s. the war was essentially won. we were producing incredible amounts of tanks and planes and guns. a united military was extraordinary. a united america took on powerful forces in europe and powerful forces in asia and in four years won the war. so yes i understand that people are distressed. i understand that but i would say two things. don't lose faith in our capabilities, that's number one. we have come through very difficult times in the past and number two, despair is not an option. [applause]

somebody throws their her hands up and says i'm giving up, you don't have that right because it's not just about you. this country is not just about you. about your children and it's about the future. if you want to give up, do you know what this means? you don't have the moral right to do that so i think we have got to rethink things and maybe worried less about -- i know i'm treading on controversial areas and maybe pay a little bit more attention to the issues impacting our children and their parents and their families and staying together. when i used the phrase political revolution that's what it means. it's not that i have an 86-point program. it means you've got something to decide the best way forward. what forward. what does it mean? here in florida you know what

climate change can do to this very city. are you going to allow an expansion of fossil fuel in this country to make a bad situation worse? i hope not an effective figure out the best way to put pressure on your elected officials in washington. figure out ways to do that and many other issues as well. no, i am ready for a fight and i hope all of you are ready for a fight. that's what we have got to do. thank you all very much. [applause] >> thank you so much. senator bernie sanders, thank you so much. [applause] well thank you all for coming tonight for this remarkable evening. we have senator sanders book is for sale out to my right. we thank you all and we will see

you all tomorrow as well. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> that concludes today's coverage of the miami book fair. we will be back tomorrow with more. we'll hear from author and "fox news" host dana reno miami book fair co-founder mitch kaplan in book award winner colson whitehead. ..