12/21/15 12/21/15 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> should corporate america love hillary clinton? >> everybody should. >> will corporate america love a president sanders? >> no, i think they won't. amy: bernie sanders and hillary clinton spar in the third democratic presidential debate over wall street in the middle east while former maryland governor martin o'malley took on both his rivals on gun control. >> senator sanders, voted

against the brady bill and to give immunity to gun dealers and senator sanders voted against sending research dollars to looking at this public health issue. secretary clinton changes her position on this every election year, seems, having one position in 2000 and then campaigning against president obama and saying we don't need federal standards. amy: we will air highlights from the debate, speak to phyllis bennis and bill curry. we will also go to burlington, vermont, to stick with the sanders campaign about why it sued the democratic national committee and why senator sanders fired a top data staffer and suspended to others. only do i apologize to secretary clinton and i hope we can work together on an independent investigation from day one, i want to apologize to my some orders. this is not the type of campaign that we run. amy: all that and more, coming up.

welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. former secretary of state hillary clinton, vermont senator bernie sanders and martin o'malley faced off saturday in the third democratic presidential debate. the candidates met just one day after the sanders campaign sued the democratic national committee for blocking access to key voter data files. the dnc took action after a sanders campaign's effort improperly accessed clinton's -- sanders campaign staffer improperly accessed clinton's voter files, taking advantage of a glitch in the system. the sanders campaign fired the staffer involved and the dnc has restored access to the files. sanders apologized for the breach during saturday's debate, which focused largely on foreign policy. clinton and sanders sparred over the role of the u.s. military. the united states must lead, but it is not the policeman of

the world. the united states must not be involved in perpetual warfare in the middle east. the united states at the same time cannot successfully fight assad and isis. isis is the major priority. >> if the united states does not lead, there is not a leader. there is a vacuum. amy: both the o'malley and sanders campaigns have accused the dnc of trying to help clinton by limiting the number of debates and scheduling them on low-viewership periods like saturday nights. according to nielsen, just 6.7 million people tuned in to abc on saturday, a fraction of the 18 million who watched tuesday's republican debate on cnn. we'll have more on the democratic debate after headlines. the united nations security council has for the first time endorsed plans for a peace process and ceasefire in syria. the resolution calls for new elections within 18 months after the beginning of political talks, although it's unclear , when those talks will begin. it does not specify if syrian president bashar al-assad will be able to run. secretary of state john kerry

praised the resolution. resolution approved today, the purpose of those negotiations between the responsible opposition and the government is to facilitate a transition within syria through a credible, inclusive, nonsectarian governance within six months. the process would lead to the drafting of a new constitution and arrangements for internationally supervised election within 18 months. amy: the news comes as rescue workers say airstrikes believed to have been carried out by russia in the rebel-held syrian city of idlib have killed scores of people. republican presidential candidate donald trump has taken a stand for russian president vladimir putin, after putin called trump a "very colorful, talented person." trump responded by saying "it's a great honor to be so nicely complemented." in a series of interviews over the weekend, trump disputed reports of the kremlin's involvement in the killings of journalists, saying "our country does plenty of killing also."

meanwhile, hundreds of people rallied outside trump tower in manhattan sunday to protest trump's recent proposals to ban all muslim immigrants, as well as deport millions of undocumented immigrants. the "dump trump" protest also took aim at major cable networks that have given trump twice as -- far more airtime than any other candidates. maha hilal of the national coalition to protect civil freedoms said the corporate media has served as a megaphone trump's campaign. >> why can donald trump have a universal platform to say these things about muslims? we need to stop that. we are not here to make a moral here because we need to mobilize. they are not going to listen to us because of her feelings or

because it is not ok to be racist, they're going to listen to us when we come out in the streets and march and demand our rights. amy: president obama has signed a $1.8 trillion spending and tax cut package after congress passed the deal in a rare moment of bipartisan unity. the measure expands military spending and provides a billion-dollar tax loophole sought by the hotel, restaurant and gambling industry. it also lifts the 40-year ban on exporting us-produced crude oil, a move oil change international called a disaster for the climate. democratic leaders said lifting the ban was crucial for winning republican support. president obama praised congress for passing the bill. >> to a they passed -- today they passed a bipartisan budget deal. i'm not wild about everything in it. i'm sure it is true for everybody. it did is a budget as i insisted that invested in our military a middle-class without ideological

provisions that would have weakened wall street reform or rules on big polluters. amy: privacy advocates have objected to the spending bill's quiet inclusion of the cybersecurity information sharing act, or seesa, a measure they say will expand mass surveillance under the guise of cybersecurity. among other provisions are new restrictions on the visa waiver program, which could force europeans deemed to be nationals of iran, iraq, syria or sudan -- or people who have visited those countries since 2011 -- to obtain a visa before entering the united states. since the move is likely to trigger reciprocal restrictions from european countries, critics warn iranian americans could now be treated as "second class citizens" when traveling abroad. the israeli military has fired artillery into southern lebanon in what it said was retaliation for rocket fire from the lebanese side. the exchange comes after israel assassinated a top commander with the lebanese group hezbollah in syria. samir kuntar was freed in 2008 after spending nearly 30 years in israeli prison for his role

in the killings of three israelis in a 1979 attack. kuntar died saturday when israel bombed a residential building in a crowded neighborhood of damascus. the attack reportedly destroyed the five-story building and killed an unknown number of civilians. residents reported seeing the bodies of women and children in the rubble. in iraq, an airstrike by the us-led coalition has killed 10 iraqi soldiers in the latest incident of so-called friendly fire. u.s. defense secretary ash carter acknowledged a us aircraft carried out the strike but said it resulted from friday, mistakes on both sides . carter said he had spoken to iraqi prime minister haider al abadi. >> i explained to him our regrets. he and i agreed that this was that this was in event that we both regretted and that there would be an investigation of it,

but that these kinds of things happen when you're fighting side-by-side, as we are. amy: in news from afghanistan, a key district in the southern province of helmand has reportedly fallen to the taliban. taliban militants overran the sangin district after two days of fighting which reportedly killed more than 90 afghan soldiers. helmand's deputy governor had pleaded for help from afghan president ashraf ghani on sunday saying, "helmand stands on the brink." in china, at least 91 people are missing after a massive landslide in the southern city of shenzhen. a massive man-made pile of construction waste plowed into an industrial park, burying 33 buildings. in iran, authorities have shuttered all schools and kindergartens for two days due to dangerous levels of air pollution. the move comes after authorities in beijing, china issued their first ever red alert over smog earlier this month. in spain, a surge in support for

the anti-austerity podemos party has dealt a major blow to the ruling people's party in national elections. sunday's elections resulted in a deeply divided parliament, leaving the future of right-wing prime minister mariano rajoy in doubt. rajoy's people's party won 123 seats, while the socialist party won 90 seats and the podemos , party won 69 seats. the podemos party grew out of the indignados protest movement . podemos leader pablo iglesias celebrated the results. , we are very happy for the fact that in spain, the two-party system has ended. and we are happy because we are starting a new political europe in our country. era in our country. our fight against corruption will be the political lines of our group in the spanish congress. spain is not going to be the

same anymore. we are very happy. and now the agenda is the constitutional reform in our country. amy: in the latest on the scandal surrounding soccer's international governing body, fifa president sepp blatter has been barred from soccer for eight years for ethics violations. the probe by fifa's independent ethics committee surrounded a payment of $2 million blatter approved for michael platini, president of the group that oversees soccer in europe. platini was also banned from soccer for eight years. officials in nashua, new hampshire have shut down all , public schools for the day after receiving a "detailed threat of violence." this comes after schools in augusta county, virginia closed friday amid outrage over a homework assignment on arabic calligraphy. the assignment asked students to copy an islamic statement of faith, known as the shahada, in order to gain "an idea of the artistic complexity of calligraphy." but angry parents accused the teacher, cheryl laporte, of trying to convert their children to islam. after a torrent of phone calls, e-mails and social media

, postings, officials closed schools, citing the "tone and content" of the messages. president obama has commuted the sentences of 95 federal prisoners, most of them nonviolent drug offenders serving lengthy sentences, including 40 sentenced to life terms. obama also pardoned two prisoners convicted of counterfeiting and bank fraud. the move more than doubles the total number of commutations obama has granted since taking office. newly released cellphone footage appears to show los angeles sheriff's deputies shooting a man in the back as he lies pinned to the ground. last may, deputies stopped noel aguilar for riding his bike with headphones. authorities initially claimed aguilar shot one of the deputies as they were handcuffing him, but officials later revealed the shot came from the other deputy's gun. video just released by oc weekly shows aguilar pinned to the ground, asking one of the deputies why he has his gun out. the deputy fires a shot into

aguilar's stomach, then the second deputy then fires three shots at aguilar. an attorney for aguilar's family said the shooting "seems like it's murder." and the fbi has released its extensive file on the late legendary folk singer and activist pete seeger. the file, obtained by mother jones through a freedom of information act request, shows the fbi began spying on seeger when he was an army private in 1943 because he wrote a letter protesting a proposal to deport all japanese american citizens at the end of world war ii. the government continued to spy on seeger through the early military intelligence agents 1970's. visited his grade school and high school, investigated his father and his wife, toshi ohta, who was japanese american, and interviewed fellow folk singer woody guthrie. seeger died last year at the age of 94. his fbi file runs to nearly 1800 pages with about 90 pages still , withheld by the government. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and

peace report. i'm amy goodman. former secretary of state hillary clinton, senator bernie sanders and former maryland , governor martin o'malley sparred in the third democratic wednesday debate. the candidates met just one day after the sanders campaign sued the democratic national committee for blocking access to crucial voter data files. the dnc took the action after a sanders campaign staffer improperly accessed clinton's voter files taking advantage of , a glitch in the system. the sanders campaign fired the staffer involved and the dnc has , restored access to the files. during saturday's debate sanders apologized for the data breach. >> not only do i apologize to secretary clinton, and a hope we can work together on an independent investigation from day one, i want to apologize to my supporters. this is not the type of campaign that we run. and if i find anybody else involved in this, they will also be fired. amy: the incident highlighted a growing riff between the

democratic national committee and sanders and o'malley. both campaigns have accused the dnc of trying to help clinton by limiting the number of debates and scheduling them on low-viewership periods like saturday nights. according to nielsen, just 6.7 million people tuned in to abc far less than the 18 million who saturday, watched tuesday's republican debate on cnn. it was the second democratic debate in a row held on a saturday. ahead of the debate sanders , campaign spokesman michael briggs blasted the dnc for scheduling saturday debates saying, "i guess christmas eve was booked." the next democratic debate is scheduled for during the martin sunday, january 17, luther king day three day long weekend. saturday's debate focused largely on national security, foreign polity, gun control and economics. on the issue of gun control, martin o'malley accused both of his rivals of being part of the problem. >> isil videos are telling lone

wolves the easiest way to buy combat assault was been is at a gun show and it is because of the flip-flopping political approach of washington that both of my two colleagues on this stage have represented for the last 40 years. >> whoa! call down a little bit, martin. >> let's tell the truth, martin. amy: on the foreign policy front, bernie sanders accused hillary clinton of being too quick to push for regime change overseas. >> difference of opinion with secretary clinton on this. are fairly deep on this issue. we disagreed on the war in iraq. we both listened to the information from bush and cheney. i voted against the war. but i think -- and i say this with due respect -- that i worry too much that secretary clinton is too much into regime change and a little bit too aggressive without knowing what the

unintended consequences might be. saddam could get rid of hussein, but that destabilized the entire region. yes, we could get rid of gaddafi, a terrible dictator, forthat created a vacuum isis. yes, we could get rid of assad tomorrow, but that would create another political vacuum that would benefit isis. so, yeah, regime change is easy. getting rid of dictators is easy. but before you do that, you have to think about what happens today -- the day after. >> with all do respect, senator, you voted with regime change with respect to libya. you joined the senate in voting to get rid of gadhafi and you asked that there be a security council validation of that with a resolution. difficultse are very issues. i know that. i've been dealing with them for a long time. and of course, we have to continue to do what is necessary when someone like gaddafi, a

desperate with american blood on his hands, is overturned, but i will tell you what would have happened if we had not joined with our european partners and our arab partners to assist the people in libya, you would be looking at syria. now the libyans are turning their attention to try to dislodge isis from its foothold and begin to try to move together to have a unified nation. talks i was not -- amy: to talk more about saturday's democratic debate we are joined by two guests. bill curry is a weekly political columnist at salon.com. curry was a white house counselor to president clinton and a two-time democratic nominee for governor of connecticut. he is now working on a book on president obama and the politics of populism. he joins us from hartford, connecticut. and in washington, d.c., is phyllis bennis, a fellow at the institute for policy studies. she's written several books, including most recently, "understanding isis and the new global war on terror." let's begin with you, phyllis. can you respond to this latest clip and the overall debate that

took place on saturday night? think what, amy, i we are seeing is an effort by all the candidates to distinguish from each other where they stand on issues of war and terrorism. and there's some significant differences. but unfortunately, i'm afraid the differences are as significant as they need to be if we were to have a really solid debate over this issue at the center of the democratic primaries. so far, it has not been. it was a centerpiece of this debate, but the differences on economic issues are far more massive, the differences on domestic issues are far more massive than -- and even some of the international issues like trade and the environment, climate, where there are vast differences between secretary of state clinton and bernie sanders, for instance, let alone governor o'malley. on the question of war, we're nothing such vast disparities. there is a significance in the

fact that senator sanders had oppose the war in iraq. senator clinton at the time, of course, had supported it. however, now they're both saying that we should go after isis using conventional military force. they both say troops on the ground that should not be american. saysor sanders explicitly they should be saudi troops. secretary clinton doesn't say exactly who they should be, just as they should be american, should be muslim troops, if that somehow means that would be so effective. the both of them are saying, yes, we go after isis and we go after the assad regime. so even senator sanders, fortunately, is saying, yes, we want regime change, it is just his difference with secretary clinton is that he thinks those things should be sequential. he said, let's concentrate on isis now and then we cannot after assad. clinton is saying, let's go after both of them at the same

time. it was left to governor o'malley to ask lycée come although he said "i agree with both of them," but then his own articulation of policy focused much more on issues of diplomacy, humanitarian support, and he had an interesting idea that none of the others mentioned of making the head of usaid, the head of the assistance and development arm of the state department a separate cabinet post, really elevating that. so elevating a system and diplomacy over war. the two leading candidates, senator sanders and secretary clinton, both were saying, yes to war against isis using conventional military force -- calming, drone strikes, ground troops that are not american -- and both saying, go after isis. the timing of that. the one significant difference was on the question of a no-fly zone. and here secretary clinton

really played out her well-known hawkishness where she said, we absolutely must have a no-fly zone, and as she put it, both for humanitarian purposes and to challenge russia. of course, isis has no planes. al qaeda has no planes. so a no-fly zone will be targeting airplanes of either russia or iran or syria, which means the u.s. going to war directly against the syrian regime and potentially against russia. so that kind of war talk from secretary clinton when it was her own colleagues in the cabinet, former secretary of defense robert gates who said in the context of the libya mobilization, which secretary clinton was leading -- she was really the true leader on libya. it was at that time that the secretary of defense said, a no-fly zone starts with going to war, and that case, against libya. the we know is that

antiaircraft system of libya hardly existed. and yet, he said, we would have to start with war. in syria, the antiaircraft system is a very developed system, which would take an enormous air campaign and potentially more to take out, as they call it, the antiaircraft system in libya that would lead to the ability to impose a no-fly zone against russian planes. it is a very, very dangerous position that secretary clinton was talking about. , your overally assessment on the debate and specifically on this issue? >> first of all, i agree with everything that was just said. i would also point out, secretary clinton, for instance in the speech to the foreign affairs council a few weeks ago, said, closely paraphrasing, i agree with president obama that it isn't time to send 100,000

troops into the mideast. and point of fact, president obama's position is that it is not time to send any troops don't go, even though there are some ground troops now that he chooses to call special operatives. his point is zero ground troops. the 100,000 figure, these kinds of things are never plucked out of the air. ,n the debate on saturday night secretary clinton said, it is not time to send tens of thousands. well, the most belligerent candidate is lindsey graham and is only for sending 15,000. so you wish the mainstream press did a little bit better at parsing the syntax, but i think the only fair inference is that secretary clinton is more than ready to take a position that lindsey graham is taking holding down the right of the republican debate. her readiness, her apparent readiness to send in some ground troops under whatever

nomenclature, i think she has made very clear. the question of the no-fly zone, again, you have two countries here, syria and iraq who have invited the soviets into their airspace. we are not invited by either country to do that. it is violation of international law. unlike the republicans, the secretary doesn't say, well, what do you do if the russians fly anyway? as always, and all of these issues, what happens then when you have actually taken the first step toward war? i really agree with what phyllis at about what is not being said. and let me just wind up with a couple of points. you have the united nations in paris playing an historic role on climate change just in these last few weeks. you see it taking the first steps on a least outlining a process toward resolution of civil war in syria. not much in that case, but

there's something there. is,the fact of the matter our safety lies not in the force of arms, but in the rule of law. and if we learned anything in the last 15 years, it is the introduction of large standing armies in ground troops into these desert wars accomplishes nothing. we've seen the limitations of our military -- not the reasons to keep growing it. we've seen what it can't do in this fight. above all, we have seen our first commitment ought to be to the multilateral resolution of conflict in this world, that this is the and really of the age of lunar -- unilateral military interventionism. i know for progressives in particular, you can be afraid the moment you get up and say ist, some right-wing yahoo going to call you a sissy or subversive, but it is the truth and it is logic and the facts supported. at some point, i think we have to take -- we have to have greater faith in the ability of

the american people to hear it. this is the hard time. things we should have been saying for years and a hard time, i know, to raise these points when people are at their most fearful as they are, understandably, right now. but all things being said in this debate fall far short of making this country safer or of solving the underlying problems. and so i was most struck also by what wasn't in that debate. we need to talk about how you really resolve these kinds of conflicts, and if i could throw in one last point, about their real root. bernie sanders right to talk about global warming. that is not a security threat 50 years from now, it is having an impact right now across the world. it is the greatest threat. in terms of the roots of these problems, we don't tell the american people, our own history, the history of interventionism, which is -- has caused so much blowback among developing countries. and we don't tell them what is happening right now. there is this trope floating in

the air that sunnis and shia's have been fighting since the year 750. not true. sometimes they fought and sometimes they happen. in the last four years, the fighting is really picked up. why is that? i would argue part of this is the wages of global corporate capitalism today, that it does lift some people a lot of absolute poverty, no question, but it suppresses others. it throws people out of the middle class across the world, and creates a permanent underclass. right now in particular, of angry, aimless, hopeless young men. and whether it is dylann roof and charleston or the zone of brothers, what we're seeing right now is a creation of this, what british economist call the bridge area. it really does threaten us. the notion that o'malley touched on that there are economic answers, there is a question here that precedes all of the stuff we're talking about in the

world of an old adage area. if you want peace work for justice. that has to be put on the table. we need to do that now. amy: bill curry and phyllis bennis, they could for being with us. when we come back, we're going to burlington, vermont, to speak with sanders spokesperson symone sanders about the data breach, about the firing and suspension of staff members, and also about the lack of coverage of bernie sanders by the corporate media. then we will come back to bill curry and phyllis bennis to continue this assessment of the debate that happened on saturday night will stop stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "waist deep in the big muddy," by pete seeger.

the fbi has released us dearly 1800 pages of files on pc or revealing how they spied on him for about three decades. that song that he's saying first for smothers brothers was redacted by the networks or it was cut out and eventually because of outcry, he was able to go on the network and saying. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the charges sanders team is making after a dustup over a breach of voter information. on friday, the dnc suspended sanders access to a critical database after finding his staffers had improperly viewed information collected by the campaign a front runner hillary clinton. several sanders employees reportedly browsed and downloaded the clinton campaign's data after a computer glitch made it briefly available . the dnc responded by blocking

sanders from the voter database, effectively cutting off the campaigns voter outreach and the source of an estimated $600,000 in donations per day. the dnc back down after sanders filed suit. but jeff weaver accused party leadership of trying to sort the vermont senator's bid. >> by their action, the leadership of the democratic national committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign. this is unacceptable. individual leaders of the dnc can support hillary clinton in any way they want, but they are not going to sabotage our campaign, one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history. we are announcing today that if the dnc continues to hold our data hostage and continues to try to attack the heart and soul of our grassroots campaign, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking immediate release.

amy: though sanders did when it was able to regain access to the database, he has also criticized the dnc for leaking the story to the media instead of handling the issue internally. senator sanders and former maryland governor martin o'malley have also accused the dnc of trying to help clinton by limiting the number of debates and scheduling them during low viewership time like saturday nights. the sanders campaign has fired one staffer and suspended to others involved in the data breach. at the democratic presidential debate saturday night, sanders apologized to clinton book called for an independent probe. sanders suggested clinton's team i have accessed his data at other points during the presidential campaign. >> senator sanders, you fired a campaign staffer. you sued the democratic national committee, all of this after your campaign acknowledged some of your staffers "the responsibly accessed data from another campaign." the clinton campaign called this a varied -- very egregious ethics and said "our data was stolen."

did they overstate this or were your staffers essentially stealing part of the clinton playbook? >> david, let me give you a little bit of background. vendors on twoed occasions there were breeches in information. two months ago, our staff found information on our computers from the clinton campaign. and when our staffers said, what is going on here? .hey went to the dnc quietly they want to the vendor and said, hey, something is wrong. and that was quietly dealt with. none of that information was looked at. our staff at that point did exactly the right thing. a few days ago, a similar incident happened. there was a breach because the dnc vendor screwed up. information came to our campaign. in this case, our staff did the wrong thing. they looked at that information. as soon as we learned that they looked a that information, we fired that person.

we're now doing an independent, internal investigation to see who else was involved. thirdly, what i have a real problem with, and as you mentioned, this is a problem. i recognize it is a problem. but what the dnc did arbitrarily without discussing it with does is shut off our access to our own information, crippling our campaign. that is an egregious act. i'm glad that late last night that was resolved. fourthly, i look forward to working with secretary clinton for an investigation, an independent investigation about all of the breaches that have occurred from day one in this campaign because i'm not convinced that information from our campaign may not have ended up in her campaign. i don't know that. but we need an independent investigation, and i hope secretary clinton will agree with me for the need of that. the last point, when we solved

-- saw the breach two months ago, we didn't run to the media make a big deal about it. and it bothers me very much that rather than working on this issue to resolve it, it has become many press releases from the clinton campaign. amy: the dispute over voter information comes as the sanders campaign says it is on pace to break president obama's record for individual donations. sanders has received over 2 million contribution so far, putting in a position to shatter obama's record of 2.2 million. the average donation dissenters is less than $30. sanders is breaking donation records despite been subjected to what he calls a blackout in the orbit media. a result report finds the flagship news programs at major networks nbc, cbs, and abc, have dedicated 234 minutes this year to stories about donald trump compared to just 10 minutes for sanders. abc'sndall report found

world news tonight, for example, devoted 81 minutes to trump campaign stories up to the end of november this year. and just 20 seconds to sanders. this is for the entire year until december. the gap comes despite trump and sanders often having similar levels of support and primary polls, and often sanders having much larger campaign rallies. in a statement, the sanders campaign said "the overly owned media may not like pretty's antiestablishment views, but for the sake of american democracy, they must allow for a fair debate in this presidential campaign [captioning made possible by democracy now!] ,e're joined by symone sanders national press secretary for the bernie sanders campaign, joining us from burlington, vermont, a state that bernie sanders represents in the senate. thank you for joining us. start off by talking about the significance of this breach. your campaign has been shut up. you have a top digital staffer that has been fired and to others who have been suspended.

>> thank you for having me this morning. yes, we were alerted earlier or late last week that a breach had indeed happened due to a failure by the dnc's vendor. after discussions with the dnc, it came to our attention that one of our staffers had inappropriately accessed data that is not acceptable to the sanders campaign, so that staffer was fired. thursday and friday, we found out friday that the dnc had shut off our access to our voter database. that was an egregious overreach of the dnc, and it was an acceptable to us. so we -- we're so happy that 550,000 folks across the country stood with us and signed petitions on friday asking were actually demanding the dnc restore our access to our voter database.

that is a database that millions of people across america have worked to compile. that is a database that over 2.3 million contributions have paid for. that was a database that was ours. we are happy that late friday evening from early saturday morning, access to our database was restored. senator sanders, you know, a net debate stage saturday night, he did great. it was a big night for him. he cannot with boundless energy. he apologized for the issue at hand on our staffer and apologize to our supporters because that is that the kind of campaign we're running. then he got back to talking about the issues. amy: is your campaign alleging that hillary clinton's campaign may have done the same, taking advantage of this breach in the dnc database? >> you know, we don't know. that is why we are calling for an independent investigation of the dnc's handling of all of the campaigns data during the

season. there's no way for us to know without an independent investigation. want to ask about the press coverage. first of all, a lot of people might be surprised stephen other was a democratic debate on saturday night. these debates are taking place on saturday night. in fact, the next one, well, it is not a saturday night, it will be a sunday night, of the three-day martin luther king weekend, huge football weekend. that will be january 17. who determines when these debates will take place? the republican debates get massive attention. they are during the week. why are these sequestered like this? >> you know, i'm not sure. that is up to the dnc. the dnc sets the debate schedule. here we are coming off the heels of a saturday night debate this monday morning. we put out a press release recently talking about the bernie blackout, if you will. as you noted, report recently came out that noted senator sanders had only received 10

minutes of coverage from the flagship television newscast this year. 20 seconds from abc world news tonight. just 20 seconds. so we know senator sanders is attracting thousands and thousands of people to his rallies across the country, more than any other presidential candidate in this race, republican or democrat. we know he has raised millions of dollars. we just announced we had raised -- we have over 2.3 million contributions to our campaign, more than any other what has bit in history. senator sanders republican matchups does better than secretary clinton with donald trump and other republicans in this white house race. he's night endorsements from the medication workers of america, the working families party, democracy for america, the national nurses united, american postal workers -- but these things are all but ignored by the flagship television newscast. amy: do you think you're being

ignored this week we have the issue of the controversy and the glitch it will turn things around, reporting on bernie sanders negatively? >> well, i definitely don't think we were ignored on friday or saturday. it is unfortunate that it took a "fiasco" or "scandal" if you will, as other folks were reporting it, an issue, for flagship news stations to cover what is definitely a competitive democratic primary. but, look, despite the fact that some flagship news stations have decided, essentially locked senator sanders out of this coverage for the political revolution is rolling on. senator sanders name ideas going up. a recent poll say came out last week, senator sanders was polling at 39%. in that same poll in january earlier this year, he was at 5%. so even without this coverage of these flagship television news stations, senator sanders

support is growing. we are going out and meeting voters where they are in communities across the country, not just in i what an new hampshire, south carolina and nevada but in virginia, alabama, colorado, all across this country. we are reaching out to folks and asking them to join the political revolution. amy: interestingly, the presidential candidate who gained the most twitter followers general republican debate last week was not one of the republicans, was not donald trump, it was bernie sanders. this was right around the time that bernie sanders did that interview with killer mike, the well-known rapper, hip-hop artist in atlanta, georgia, who introduced him at a rally and also did that barbershop interview with him. can you talk about the significance of this support and somethingie sanders, that did not get tremendous attention, just a few weeks ago, going to baltimore to our freddie gray was killed and why he did this, right at the

beginning of december? >> yes, so i think it is important to note that the political revolution is a multiracial political revolution. the political revolution is young people, old people, men and women, gay, straight, white, black, latino were standing up saying enough is enough. america is just not for the billionaires. everyday hard-working people want to be a part of what is happening in our democracy. so, yes, folks like killer might have joined the political revolution, people like susan sarandon have joined the political revolution. i think it is important because the senator platform, it speaks to a broad range of people. december 8, we visited baltimore, maryland and the senators -- senator took a walking tour of the sand town winchester neighborhood, which is the neighborhood where freddie gray lived and where he was arrested. that walking tour was extremely important because as you walk the streets of that particular

neighborhood in baltimore, you notice that there are things like a grocery store. that there are things such as a bank ever branch. where do folks cash their checks? where did they get quality groceries? , people to said understand, but it is very expensive to be poor. and that visit to baltimore that only shined a light on communities across the country that deal with these same things, but also brought up issues of education and issues of economic inequality, historically black colleges and universities. we discussed these issues with african-american civic leaders and religious leaders from across the country. it was a very rich and fruitful conversation from both sides. i think it was an amazing visit. amy: symone sanders, thank you for being with us national press , secretary for the bernie sanders campaign. speaking to us from burlington,

vermont. when we come back, we go back to clips of the debate on saturday night and speak with phyllis bennis and bill curry. back in a minute. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we turn to another clip from saturday evening's democratic presidential debate, abc moderator david muir asked hillary clinton if she is a friend of corporate america. >> i did want to ask you the last time he ran for president, fortune magazine put you on its cover with the headline "business loves hillary" pointing out your support for many ceos in corporate america. eight years later, should corporate america love her clinton? >> everybody should. [applause]

look, i said i want to be the president for the struggling to striving and the successful. i want to make sure the wealthy pay their fair share, which they have not been doing. i want the buffett rule to be in effect where millionaires have to pay 30% tax rates instead of 10% to nothing in some cases. i want to make sure we rein in the political power to feather the nest and support the super wealthy. but i also want to create jobs will stop and i want to be a partner with the private sector. a particularly and keen on creating jobs in small businesses. >> senator sanders, how big of a role does corporate america play in a healthy economy and will corporate america love a president sanders? >> know, i think they won't. so hillary and i have a difference. [applause]

the ceos of large multinationals like hillary, they ate the like me and wall street is when the like me even less. we the reason for that is have got to deal with the elephant in the room, which is the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on wall street. when you have six financial institutions in this country, issue two thirds of the credit cards and one third of the mortgages, when three out of four of them are larger today than what we build them out because they're too big to fail, we have got to reestablish glass-steagall and break the large financial institutions up. -- having saidk that,, i don't think of going to get a whole lot of contribution -- campaign contributions from wall street. i don't have a super pac. i do want campaign contributions from corporate america. and let me be clear, while there are some great corporations

trying to do the right thing, in my view, and i say this very seriously, the greed of the billionaire class, the greed of wall street is destroying this economy and is destroying the lives of millions of americans. we need an economy that works for the middle class, not just a handful of billionaires, and i will fight and lead to make that happen. and that is bernie sanders hillary clinton and the debate that also included the former governor of maryland, martin o'malley. on saturday night, the presidential debate that took place in manchester, new hampshire, bill curry is our guest, weekly political columnist at most recent article is headlined "debbie wasserman , schultz must go, and the case bernie sanders must make tonight," which he wrote ahead of saturday's debate. curry was a white house counselor to president clinton and a two-time democratic nominee for governor of connecticut. we're also joined by phyllis bennis a fellow at the institute , for policy studies.

bill, i want to go to you first on this response. again, there is a lot more that i think that bernie sanders do in order to make this case. and his tendency in all of this has been, one, he is really proud of never having run a negative ads. he doesn't want to do negative politics. i agree. second, he doesn't want to go down as the guy who softened hillary up for the kill, who only did her damage. and at the same time, i think he takes the whole thing too far. clarifying hard choices is exactly why we have debates and why we have elections. and i think -- amy: he was clarifying a difference right there, wasn't the? >> and he was. but i think yes to go further. which thesystem in

pay to play politics of which clinton is an architect -- again, sharpening the differences with his opponent, and order to do the ritz is over policy, hillary is literally not just a poster child, she, rahm emanuel, their campaign, these were the first democratic campaigns since andrew jackson to raise more money from businesses than republicans. the bond they made with wall street has been critical and how they had built their party. in it is why the middle class is dying. this symbiotic relationship between ever more concentrated and powerful global capital and pay to play politics is at the heart of what has gone wrong here. at one point in the previous debate, clinton said desperately, sanders was impugning her integrity by raising the issue of moneyed interests. it was a point for him i think it turned to her and say, i'm not impugning your integrity, i

am tuning the integrity of the system. i'm telling you the kind of political system we have right now is the reason the middle class is dying in this country. and the reason i should be president instead of you is that you don't know it. and that you have helped build that system, and that you still defend it. secondly, there are moments such as in health care and in the banking issue where you have to go further than just say "break them up." yet to make sure that people know for all the rhetoric that clinton herself engages in the opportunity of capitalism to build families and build small businesses. these big banks to lend money to small business is anymore. this is a fight right now not just between left and right between honest and dishonest and between small and big. we have become a nation of middlemen and toll collectors, of parasites who the government allows to set up the ability to take fees. every time you swipe a credit card, one of the major banks

takes 1.75% of the transaction. they don't have to lend money to small businesses and homeowners anymore. the vital organs of this economy are shutting down because of the way our democracy is mortgaged to the wealthy and the powerful. it is mortgaged to the past. if someone gets up and says that strongly enough and clearly a more this could become vibrant election. i'm amazed at the progress sanders has made. of itszed at the appeal message, despite the fact that he is been shut down by the corporate media so much. amy: bill, before we go to phyllis on this issue of dover wasserman schultz, was head of the democratic national committee, bernie sanders has not done this, but you say she herself must go. why?

>> absolutely. first of all, when the bernie spokesperson in the earlier segment, who did a wonderful job, i would just add it was not the dnc that shut down the debates. it was ms. scholz. there was no meeting. there were no notice or minutes. all of the other members of that committee never got to -- at least two vice chairs of cap ported said they read about it after the fact and the newspaper. no one else has claimed to been informed in advanced -- john amy: about? >> the decision to go from 26 debate in 2008 to six debates, three of them on a weekend, for 2016. debbie wasserman schultz and hillary clinton made that choice together. in this contracting dispute, the contractor, company of which scholz's nephew was principal and all the principles have various ways -- in

for different clinton campaigns in the past, if -- amy: the one to run the database. >> i'm sorry, the want to run a database. for anybody to think they're getting due process, when there's such a small cabal making all the decisions, this is supposed to be a political party and in healthy society, there would be a democratic process in the democratic party by which elected people would be overseeing these issues by making sure their wasn't just nepotism, insider dealing, and making sure the public was able to see how this process works. that the political party itself, what is supposed to be the progressive party, has become mortgaged to a small group of washington insiders who raise money from large corporate hacks, were dependent upon them from pursuing her own careers, that the party themselves has become just a dead carcass of what it once was is the most

important these of information that this contra temps over the data files has revealed were emphasized, because it has been revealed 100 other ways including the shutting down of debate. it is time for progressives in this country to stand up and demand a genuinely democratic process. if nothing else, from the democratic party, democratic process. amy: i want to bring phyllis bennis back in for the last minute that we have. -- wee overall issues talked about what was raised, what wasn't other journalists and they did not raise climate change or talk about the issue of immigration, but where you feel the democratic party is going right now? >> you know, i think what we're seeing is that hillary clinton is not running in a democratic party primary, but running the general election with the assumption, the entitlement that she will be the candidate. and that is a huge problem. everything that bill curry just that i think is absolutely

right. i think what we have to recognize is the so-called two-party system is not working. this is what we're seeing in spain and the victory of podemos over the weekend and the possibility of breaking the monopoly of a two-party system where there's just not enough differences on certain key issues. there are differences, i don't want to minimize the differences between the two parties, but they're not nearly what they need to be and there's not a democratic process within either party. we don't have a democratic democracy. i think what we're looking at is a situation in which the clear differences -- there are clear differences on climate and the economy. amy: 10 seconds. >> i disagree there was not clearly from bernie sanders. i think you made a very compelling case on the economic side. on the issues, crucial issues of war, the notion you can go to war against terrorism -- none of these candidates were prepared to say, you can't bomb terrorism. you can only bomb people, and that creeps more terrorism, not

less. amy: we have to leave it there. we will continue to cover these issues, phyllis bennis and bill curry. we will link your articles. that does it for our broadcast. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outrea