funding for "overhead" with evan smith is provided in part by m.f.i. foundation, improving the quality of life withinur community. and from the texas board of legal specialization, board certified attorneys in your community. experienced, respected, and tested. also by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy. and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation. and viewers like you. thank you. i'm evan smh. he's the united states senator from vermont who self-describes as a socialist, serves as an independent, and may run for president as a democrat in016. he's the honorable bernie saers. this is "overheard." [applause]. >> actually, there are not two sides to every issue. >> so i guess we can't fire him now. >> i guess we can't fire him now.

the night that i win the emmy. >> being on the supreme court was an improbable dream. >> it's hard work and it's controversial. >> without information, there is no freedom. and it's journalists who provide that information. >> window rolls down and this guy says, hey, he goes to 11:00. aughter]. >> senator sanders, welcome. >> my pleasure. >> very nice to see you, sir. >> good to be here. >> let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak. are you going to run for president? >> giving serious thought about doing just that. >> you've given it enough thought at this point. why don't you just decide? [laughter]. >> what's keeping you from making the decision already? >> i tell you what, you make out a check for a billion dollars -- >> is that what it is? >> yeah. >> i thought you didn't like billionaires, though. >> i don't like billionaires, but i do need enough money to run a serious campaign. >> right. >> and one of the problems we have is when you take on the billionaire class and the koch

brothers and wall street and the military industrial complex and the pharmaceutical industry, that is a little bit of opposition. >> yeah. and they're not a big fan of your politics. >> most of them are not a big fan of my politics. >> right. >> so what we have to determine right now is i know there are millions of people who are disgusted with the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality in america, the high unemployment, the fact that we are the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people. people are disgusted with this citizens united supreme court decision that allows billionaires to buy elections. so i know that people feel strongly about those issues. >> right. >> but in terms of putting together a campaign, what i have to ascertain is can we build the kind of grassroots movement that we need? can we raise, not as much money, obviously, as our opponents, but enough money to run a strong campaign? >> isn't it ironic that you're the preeminent voice against the pernicious influence of money and politics and yet money and politics may be the hurdle? >> look, let me be very clear and say this with sadness --

>> yeah. >> the koch brothers are the second wealthiest family in america. they are worth about $85 billion. they will spend at least $900 million on this campaign. you have other billionaire families who will spend very widely. and it may well be, and i don't want to frighten people, it may well be a moment where they are too powerful, they have too much money. >> it may be impossible. >> it may be. they own the country, they own the economy. they are about to own, trying to own, the political system. and we have to recognize that that's it. maybe we can't beat them. but having said that -- >> yeah. >> i have four kids and seven grandchildren. and i will be damned if'm gog to allow that happen without a fight. we're going to try to fight back. >> right. and at least -- [cheering and applause]. >> at least, senator, if you end up unable to get in, you can at least press the case from the outside, if not from the inside, as you've been doing. >> right. and i've been doing that for my whole life. >> right. >> but i think what all americans have got to be aware of -- >> right. >> is that right now we have

political system that says you have one vote but billionaires can spend unlimited sums of money. and by the way -- i mean, this is important. >> yeah. >> for the republican party right now and the koch brothers, citizens united is not good enough. they want to get rid of that and move to a situation where there are no campaign finance limitations. so the koch brothers can literally gives checks of hundreds of millions of dollars to candidates making them, for all intents and purposes, their employees. >> employees, right. you're talking about billionaires and republicans -- >> yes. >> -- but the reality is before you get to face republicans funded by billionaires, you would have to face democrats in a primary. don't you like hillary clinton? don't you think hillary clinton could make this case? >> i like hillary clinton a lot. i knew hillary when she was in the senate. we served together. >> right. >> and i certainly knew her as first lady. very intelligent woman with a strong career behind her. but if i run, i'm not running against hillary or anybody else. what i am running against is a situation where, as of today --

this is incredible. the top 1% is now earning 99% of all new income. >> right. >> the top one-tenth of 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%. >> right. >> and listen to this, in the last two years alone, the wealthiest 14 people in this country saw their wealth increase by $157 billion. that is more wealth than the bottom 40% have entirely. >> right. yeah. >> is that what america is supposed to be about? i don't think so. >> can't she press that case? do you feel confident she could press that case if she were the nominee? >> i tell you what, get her on the show and she'll tell you. [laughter]. >> so, you don't want to tell me? senator -- >> no, no, no. >> -- you don't seem shy about your point of view. >> yeah, but i'm not shy about my point of view. i will press that case. i will tell you that we need to create millions of jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure. i will tell you that over a period of a few years we need to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. i will tell you that i voted against the keystone pipeline and believe that climate change is real. we need to transform our energy system. >> right.

>> i will tell you those things. hillary, you'll have to ask her. i don't want to speak for her. >> could you support her if she were the nominee? >> well, let's take one thing at a time. i don't know what her point of view is. >> yeah. >> i like her very much. i respect her. but the issue is right now that we have, for 40 years, a middle class in this country that is disappearing. we have tens of millions of people working longer hours for low wages. we have over 40 million people living in poverty. we are the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people. those are the issues that i would be running on. >> now, within those last 40 years are six plus years in which the president has been barack obama. >> yes. >> has he been part of the problem or part of the solution? >> both. and here's the important point. >> yeah. >> for 40 years the middle class has been declining. real median family income today is $5,000 less than it was in 1999. if you look at what's happened under president obama, i think

very few people would conclude that we're not a heck of a lot better today than we were when bush left office. >> you give him that? >> oh, absolutely. when bush left office, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month and people complained well, we only gained 200,000 jobs this month. is that enough? no. is it better than losing 800,000 jobs a month? when bush left office, the world's financial system was literally on the verge of collapse. now wall street is doing very well, maybe too well, as a matter of fact. but it's doing very, very well. our deficit has gone down by two-thirds. so of course we're doing much better than we were six years ago. but you're still seeing today workers, who in inflation accounted for dollars, are earning substantially less than they did 40 years ago. >> when senator obama was running, now as president obama for the last six plus years got in, do you believe he shared your view of these issues or was he thwarted -- so in other words, i'm trying to understand was the problem over these last

six years that he didn't believe what you believe, or that he did believe it but was somehow thwarted by the difficulties in the political system. >> let me tell as somebody who knows the president. i like him and respect him and he is a very, very smart guy. his politics are, and have always been, different than my politics. he is, you know, a liberal democrat. i am a progressive, and those puts us in a different place. >> he's not progressive enough for you, for your taste? >> no, but his campaign in 2008 was a brilliant campaign. it was one of the great campaigns ever run in this country. >> yeah. >> and the major criticism that i have, aside from the fact that i disagree with him about the trans-pacific partnership, is he ran a brilliant campaign. he brought millions of people together, young people, blacks, hispanics, white working-class people. and then when he got elected, he was maybe goodhearted enough or maybe naive enough to think that he could sit down with john boehner and the republicans and negotiate seriously. the truth was from day one they were determined to obstruct everything that he did. >> right.

>> and what he did do, which was such a mistake, is he kind of cut the ties with that grassroots movement that had elected him. and let me be very clear, no president, not barack obama, not bernie sanders, not hillary clinton, not anybody will ever be able to bring around the changes that working families need in this country unless we maintain a strong grassroots movement that says to corporate america, says to the big money interest -- >> right. >> -- our kids deserve a decent standard of living and you are not going to stop us. [applause]. >> now of course the first two years, senator, the first two years that the president was in office, he had a democratic majority in both houses. >> absolutely. >> so doesn't the democratic majority in congress and the democratic leadership at the time, leader reid and at that time speaker pelosi, don't they bear some of the responsibility for not having this agenda enacted? >> the answer is yes and the answer is kind of no, because within the democratic caucus you also had some pretty conservative people. >> right. >> you know, reid can't put a gun to somebody's head. but i think -- here's what i think.

the lesson of this very last election, it's not just the republicans won big, that is a lesson. but the other lesson is that 63% of the american people didn't vote. >> right. >> and i think the weakness of the democratic party is they haven't stood up and brought forth an agenda that says to the working families of this country, we are with you. we are prepared to take on the billionaire class and hell or high water, we are going to make that fight. >> right. >> we're going to break up the large financial institutions. we are going to ask the wealthiest people in this country to start paying their fair share of taxes. we are going to make it possible for you to send your kid to college regardless of your income. we're going to do those things, and we need your help to do that. i think what ended up happening, the president, the democratic leadership, sat down, tried to work out things with the republicans -- >> right. >> it didn't happen. >> well, the fact is, the president has walked up to the edge of saying, in fact has said at various points, we think that the wealthy need to pay their fair share or a fairer share of taxes, to pick out one thing you just enumerated in your list. but if the votes are not there in congress, the kind of

legislation -- the president doesn't have the power of enacting legislation, he has the bully pulpit. >> yes. >> he can only go so far. >> that's true. >> yeah. >> but this is what i think. and i say this not just from a partisan point of view -- >> right. >> after all is said and done, he is the republican agenda. and i'm the ranking member on the budget committee. >> on the budget committee, right. >> so i just went through this. in this last budget in the senate, the republicans gave huge tax breaks to billionaires. they threw 27 million people off of health insurance by ending the affordable care act and cutting medicaid by $440 billion. they made it harder for working-class kids to go to college by cutting pell grants by $90 billion over a ten-year period. and at a time when many families are struggling to put food on the table, they made massive cuts in nutrition programs. >> yeah. >> evan, let me ask you an honest question, if you go out to rural texas, which is conservative, and you see to people there, do you think it makes sense to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut back on medicare, medicaid, and education? how many people would say yes?

not many. the truth is the republican agenda represents maybe 10%, 15% of the american people. the weakness of the democrats and my criticism of the president is he has not brought forth -- you're right. it cannot be done within capitol hill -- >> right. >> but what can be done, if we want to make college affordable to the kids on this campus with young people all over america, we need a million of them to show up in washington, d.c. and say that countries all over the world have free tuition for their universities, we could do it here in the united states. >> so how do you get people to turn out to vote? that has been the conundrum. you know, you have in a state like texas, you have an emerging hispanic majority. not yet, but coming. and yet the hispanic population turns out, as a percentage, is much lower than the eligible anglo voters. this has been the dream and the dream dashed for democrats over the last several election cycles. what do you do about that? >> let me tell you a story. >> yeah. >> i was elected mayor of the city of burlington back in 1981. >> right. >> i won that election by ten votes after a recount. [laughter]. >> during my first two years, i took on democrats and

republicans. i ran as an independent. and we had a terrible fight. but i kept my promise to the working families of that city. two years later the voter turnout was almost double and i won an easy re-election. >> why do you think that was? >> because i stood up for the working families of my city. in other words, what the average person -- >> yeah. >> say, doesn't have any health care, making $10 an hour, sees his job go to china and you say, hey, come out and vote. and what that person says, why? >> why? game is fixed. >> that's exactly right. >> right. >> why? the rich get richer, i'm getting poorer. why do you want me to give credibility to a system that doesn't work for me? >> right. >> so it's a catch-22. what you need as a political party to stand up and fight for those people. look, the koch brothers are going to spend $900 million on this coming election. >> yeah. >> they apparently think politics is important, all right? [laughter]. >> and they're right. but if you're the average person, you don't think politics is important. so what you need is -- >> right.

>> -- with absolute clarity to come up with an agenda that says, you know what? we're going to create millions of jobs in this country because real employment is 11%. we're going to rebuild our infrastructure. you know what, we're going to raise the minimum wage, maybe over a period of years, to $15 an hour. you know what? we're going to make tuition free in every public college and university in america so your kid can go to college. >> free? >> free. >> how are you going to afford that? >> well, i'll tell you a radical idea. >> give me a radical idea. >> this is the wealthiest country in the history of the world -- >> right. >> we live in a competitive global economy -- >> right. >> how can we afford not to have the best educated workforce? [applause]. >> that is an applause line, it's a great line. i know you mean it. but the reality is there is a real cost -- >> there is a big cost. >> a real cost. >> there is a big cost. >> where is it going to come from? >> i tell you where. in the republican budget that i had to sit through for an entire week, they increased military spending by $38 billion off budget at a time when we spend more than the next ten countries in the world on the military. we are losing $100 billion every single year because corporations and the rich stash their money in the cayman islands and other

tax havens. you ask the rich to start paying their fair share of taxes, you make judicious cuts in the military, you will be able to provide free public college and university tuition to the kids in this country. >> so if you run -- if you were to run for president, you would make free public university tuition a staple of your campaign. >> we're going to be introducing legislation to do that within the next month. >> is that right? [applause]. >> so as we sit here today, to this point about the military spending in this country, as we sit here today talking, speaker boehner is on a tour of the middle east. he's in israel, in fact, literally as we sit here today. and he's saying that what he's hearing overseas is the world is more dangerous. our involvement in the world needs to be greater, not less. our spending on our foreign policy needs to be greater, not less. why is he wrong and you're right? >> well, let me give you an example. if speaker boehner is in israel right now, and that's fine. i hope he goes to saudi arabia. and i hope he speaks to the new king of saudi arabia and says,rw

have the third largest military budget in the entire world, bigger than the u.k., bigger than france. your family is worth tens of billions of dollars and you just contacted the president of the united states a few weeks ago and said, mr. president, president obama, we want you to send ground troops, combat troops to defend us. and i hope mr. boehner tells the king of saudi arabia that maybe he can put his troops on the ground taking on isis -- >> instead of ours. >> instead of ours. [applause]. >> right. >> we should be supportive. >> right. >> but, you know, i have to tell you, my republican friends in the congress, threw 27 million people off of health insurance. we are too poor a country, but we cant continue to pour more and pour in the military despite the fact that the department of defense can't even audit themselves and everybody knows their outrageous cost overruns. >> right. >> so, do we need a strong military? absolutely. >> yeah. >> but i think we have to look, take a hard look at whether or not that military is being run, among other things, in a cost-effective way.

>> yes. >> and let me add to this. i am scared to death that some of my republican friends want another war in the middle east and want perpetual warfare. we have been there for over a decade. so i think we support the muslim countries who are fighting for what islam is supposed to be. >> yeah. >> but i will not support more ground troops going into combat. [applause]. >> do you consider the -- do you consider the real or perceived threat to israel to be enough of a motivation for this country to be involved overseas? >> well, involved, of course we are involved, and we should be involved. >> but that may involve spending, it may involve troops. >> we are spending $600 billion on the military. >> right. >> that is a lot of money. >> but i guess i'm asking, is israel -- the threat to israel, perceived or real, enough for you to think differently about where we should be involved and how we should be involved? >> well, the threat is not only a threat to israel, which is certainly real, but it is a question of how we can bring peace to the middle east, which

is not an easy issue. >> yeah. >> so i think israel has, you know, issues that they have got to deal with. >> right. >> the palestinians have issues, but i think our role is to try to do what we can to bring people together. >> secretary of state james baker -- former secretary of state baker, made some headlines a couple of weeks ago by saying that he believed, at moments, mr. netanyahu's rhetoric doesn't match his actions with regard to his desire for peace. do you share his -- >> well -- >> it was perceived as criticism of netanyahu which is -- >> oh, my goodness, so you're not allowed to criticize -- >> a third rail these days. what do you think about that? >> well, look. i was not happy to see the speaker invite netanyahu to a joint session of congress. >> yeah. >> for two reasons. he went behind -- boehner went behind the president's back. the president leads us in foreign policy. and second of all, netanyahu was in a very difficult re-election campaign and i don't want to see the floor of the united states congress used as a photo opportunity. >> campaign ad. >> as a campaign -- which it, in

fact, turned out to be. >> right. >> so do i think we're allowed to criticize mr. netanyahu? yeah, i do. and i think some of the statements that he made during the end of his campaign were, in fact, unacceptable. >> let me pivot over to indiana. we're sitting here at the end of a week in which -- i know that governor -- you know, there was some discussion that governor mike pence might run for president in 2016 -- >> probably will get the gay vote, i don't know. [laughter]. >> right. yeah, yeah. probably not going to get the gay vote. [applause]. >> that's a good one. [laughter]. >> what just happened here? and can you put this in the context of an evolving conversation about the rights for gays and lesbians in this country? >> here is a very important flow of what's happening in america. for many years now, we have made pretty good progress. and we should be proud of ourselves in making this nation a less discriminatory nation. and that means people struggled for decades for civil rights for

african-americans, and we should be proud that we have an african-american who is president of the united states. people struggled for women's rights. you know, 30 years ago women were not involved in nontraditional-type employment. we had relatively few women who held elected positions. we have a long way to go but we have made pretty good progress. i remember back, you may remember, if you had a baby who had a disability -- >> yeah. >> often that kid was institutionalized. we have welcomed kids with disabilities into our community. and the gay movement, people stood up and fought and said, you know what, we are not going to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation. and i could tell you that all over this country, young people, they don't even know what the issue is anymore. >> right. >> what's the issue? gay marriage, what's the problem, of course? and then you've got the governor of indiana saying well, you know, your religious views and somebody wants a service from you, you don't have to provide it. i think all over america, including corporate america, people are saying that is not

what this country can be about. >> but there are 19 states now. indiana is the 19th state to pass -- maybe arkansas' passage of it or i guess they're in the process of trying to decide. the governor kicked it back to the legislature, but there are 19 states, in any case, that have some kind of law like this, differences in the details, in effect. why this one became a news issue as opposed to the previous one? >> look, because does everybody believe in religious freedom? of course we all believe in religious freedom, but i think what has come out is that my religious freedom says that i do not have to provide services to you if you're gay. i think that has come out more today than we have seen in the past. and people are saying, no, that is not what america is supposed to be. >> so governor pence -- governor pence had a press conference you probably saw the other day or saw word of it in which he said this was never intended to be a license to discriminate. >> i don't believe that. >> you don't believe it? you believe that it was a license to discriminate? >> of course. that is part of what their base is about. >> so do you think this can be fixed? is it an amend it or mend it or is it an end it deal? >> i will let the, you know, state legislature of indiana figure that one out. >> right. >> but i think the lesser --

>> have you encouraged governor shumlin in vermont to pass, as governor malloy did in connecticut, say that we're not going to fund state travel to indiana? >> well, let me just tell you about vermont. we were the very first state in this country to pass civil unions. we have led the nation. we have led the nation. >> right. >> yeah. [applause]. >> so where is governor -- you know, governor malloy stepped out. the mayors of seattle and portland, among other cities, stepped out and said we're not going to fund travel to indiana. >> yeah, and i support that, absolutely. >> so you would call for governor shumlin to do that? >> i think as a nation, yeah. i don't have any problem with that. but i think as a nation we should let the folks in indiana or in arkansas or elsewhere know that we don't support discrimination. >> right. >> you said over the last couple of days, not for the first time, certainly, we have to take on billionaires, there's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. >> yes. >> you alluded earlier to the idea that they should pay their fair share. is there anything else that you would like to see, as a matter of federal policy, with regard to redistribution of wealth or what would be required of people above a certain income level? >> yes. >> help us understand, specifically, what you do. >> when you have the top

one-tenth of 1% earning more wealth than the bottom 90%. and when you have 99% of all new income today going to the top 1%, you need a progressive tax system. and you need -- in fact, you asked me how are we going to fund -- >> free college. >> -- free college. well, that's one of the ways we do it. >> so what's a tax rate look like, then, in a sanders administration? >> i won't quite come up with that rate right now as we sit here in front of the tv camera. i need a little time to come up with it, but it would be a very progressive rate. when you have massive income and wealth inequality, yes, the wealthy and large corporations are going to have to pay their fair share of taxes. we have a situation now where major corporation after major corporation, general electric, verizon, boeing in a given year, you know what they pay in federal income taxes? zero. not a penny. so that has clearly got to change. when you ask me about how you deal with wealth and income inequality, you know, we need to create millions of decent paying jobs and raise the minimum wage to a living wage. those are some of the ways i think we address that issue. >> right. and so if you were to run, this would be a central tenet, maybe

the central tenet of your campaign? >> the central tenet of the campaign would be to say that never before in the modern history of our country have so few people had so much wealth and so much power. and if we, as a nation, are not prepared to say enough is enough, you can have it all. i mean, what we see is an epidemic of greed. you would think, if you were the koch brothers and you had $85 billion, it might be enough -- >> be enough. >> -- that you don't have to try to destroy social security and medicare and medicaid. but for them, it is not. and what we have got to say, sorry, you can't have it all. that's not what america is about. >> you have chosen to serve in the united states senate -- [applause]. >> -- as an independent, although you've caucused with democrats. why not run, if you decide to run, as an independent? >> fair question, and i haven't ruled that out. but the obvious impediment is that to run as an independent outside of the two-party system, you would have to put together a political infrastructure in 50 states around america. >> right. and that's been proven to be very difficult over time.

>> very difficult, very, very expensive. >> it's rigged, in fact, against third parties. >> exactly. and, in fact, it may well be, in some states, virtually impossible. >> impossible to do it. okay. we're about to be out of time here. you will decide and tell us your decision when? >> as soon as it makes sense. as soon as i figure out the answers to the questions i've asked. >> if we were sitting here 30 days from now, it's now the beginning of april. if this were may 1st, might we know by then? >> i think the answer is i'll know it -- and by the way, let me say, coming here to texas, the response has been extraordinary. we have had huge meetings and i want to thank the people of texas. and that tells me there is a lot of support for the agenda we're bringing forward. >> but you don't want to be specific about a timetable? >> not right now. >> all right, good. senator sanders, thank you very much. good luck whatever you decide, sir. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. [cheering and applause]. >> we'd love to have you join us in the studio. visit our website at klru.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews, q&as with our audience and guests, and an archive of past episodes. >> what is really disturbing,

and i think an international embarrassment is the degree that virtually all republicans still refuse to acknowledge that climate change is real and caused by human activity and causing devastating problems. funding for "overhead" with evan smith is provided in part by m.f.i. foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. and from the texas board of legal specialization, board certified attorneys in your community. experienced, respected, and tested. also by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy and its global health care consulting business unit hillco health. and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation. and viewers like you. thank you.