I have some new tour dates I want to tell you about. We will be in Lafayette, Louisiana, Thanksgiving weekend on November 29 at the Cajun Dome, baby, down there in Poirier country. We will also be in Balmont, Texas, on November 30 at Doget Ford Park Arena. Get your tickets early starting Tuesday, August 13th at 10:00 AM local time with presale code Rat King. General on sale begins Wednesday, August 14th at 10:00 AM local time. We will also be in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the LSU-USC opening weekend of football, August 30th and 31st. Bend Oregon, Spokane, Washington, Portland, Oregon, Vancouver, BC, in the Canada, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma North, Little Rock, Springfield, Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Moline, Illinois. You can get all your tickets at theovan. Com/thiouvon. Com/thiouvon. Thank you so much for supporting Live Comedy and our show. Today's episode was filmed at the Venetian Soda and Cocktail Lounge in Burlington, Vermont. We want to thank them for hosting us and allowing us in their beautiful beautiful space. Our guest, he's a United States Senator from Vermont. He's an independent, though he's been friendly with the Democratic Party over the years.

He's been a congressman, a senator, a presidential candidate, and he's one of the biggest lightning rods in American politics. At the very end of the interview, we did experience some difficulties with our microphones, so we apologize for the change in sound there. We're grateful to welcome today's guest, Senator Bernie Sanders. Shine that light on me. I'll sit and tell you by I love it.

Do you travel the country doing these things?

Yeah, mostly I travel doing a stand-up comedy, but about six years ago, I started doing podcasting just in my kitchen at home. Mostly was just talking about… I've been in recovery for years, so mostly just talking about that stuff. Yeah, alcohol and drugs and intimacy disorders. A lot of that stuff. Then we started having guests after about two years. Went on Joe Rogan a few times, and that helped boost the steam. Yeah, it's been surprising since then. Congratulations. Thanks. It's made me grow up some, which is a blessing and a curse. I just went to the Grateful Dead the other day with my brother, so pretty cool. You ever see the Grateful Dead?

No.

You remember what was the first concert you ever went to?

A name you probably wouldn't know. You ever heard of Pete Seeger?

I've heard of Bob Seeger.

Yeah, I think that this one I'm doing a lot of... I was into folk music more than that.

Billy Strings, have you heard of him? Yeah. Yeah, he's awesome. He's one of my favorites. Pete Seeger, that's him right there?

God, that was fast. Yeah, he's an interesting guy. There's another guy who died a long time ago. I don't know if you know his name. Woody Guthrie. Is that his name? Woody Guthrie.

I've heard of him, yeah.

Yeah, and actually, his My granddaughter helped me out during my campaigns. He wrote a lot during the Great Depression. So he went around the hobo camps, talked to poor people.Oh, wow.And he wrote songs. You ever heard the song, This land is your land. That's his song.

Oh, wow. I didn't even think somebody wrote that.

No, he was a great songwriter and a great singer.

Woody Guthrie. Woody Guthrie. I'm going to have to tap into some of his stuff. My brother and I went. You have a brother? You have a brother. I have an older brother, yeah. You guys ever go to a concert together?

No, I don't think we are. He lives in Oxford, England.

Yeah, it's fancy over there.

Well, have you ever been to England? Yeah. They have this old university called Oxford University, which is one of the great universities in the world. I stayed in a house, God, like with 1400 or 1300. Who the hell knows? I mean, really. It goes way, way back.

Oh, yeah. The Oh, yeah. You got to bring your own plum, and I'm sure.

Well, they've advanced a little bit.

Bernie Sanders, thank you so much for joining us today. Great to be with you. I really appreciate it. Whenever you started in politics, I'm sure that there was a real idea of one person can really affect change, right? Do you think that that's still possible today with a lot of the lobbies and stuff that they have that goes on?

Well, I think one of the points I think everybody knows is you have a government dominated by big money interest, right? That's no great secret. You have these billionaires now in their superpacks. You're a billionaire, you can contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to elect people, to feed people. If you're a large corporation or you represent the pharmaceutical industry, Do you know how many lobbyists there are in Washington, DC representing the big drug companies? Take a wild and crazy guess.

2000.

You got it. That's a pretty good guess. About 1800. Wow. There are 100 members of the Senate 435 members of the House. Got it? 535. You got 1800 lobbyists. Well-paid former leaders of the Democratic Party, leaders of the Republican Party. They are there to say, Hey, Congress, do everything you can to make sure we make as much money as possible, and who gives a damn whether people can afford the prescription drugs they need. That's power.

You have a whole other drug government almost going on. Absolutely. That's even bigger than our own government.

Numbers-wise. Well, We could define what we mean by bigger. That's fair. But if you look at Wall Street, the power of Wall Street, the drug companies, the insurance companies, the fossil fuel industry, you have enormous wealth, enormous power. If your question is, is it government that tells them what to do, or they tell what the government to do, more the latter. They tell the government what to do. Very powerful.

Does it feel like that's changed over your time in politics, or has it always been that way?

I think to some degree, money talks, right? No great secret. That's always been the case. It's worse now, and I'll tell you why. As a result of this Citizens United Supreme Court decision, you're familiar with that? Mm-hmm. The people brought action. Billionaires really brought action. They said, Hey, It's undemocratic. You're taking away my freedom of speech, right? I got a First Amendment, right? We're on TV now. You could say whatever you want to say, and I'm a billionaire, and I want to spend unlimited sums of money to defeat this candidate or support this candidate. You have laws on the books now which restrict my freedom to buy the election. You understand what I'm saying? 100%.

Okay.

And Supreme Court said, Well, guys, you're right. You're billionaires. You should be able to spend as much money as you want to buy elections. And that's what you have. So right now, this is literally the truth. You have superpacks where billionaires can put unlimited amounts of money, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat people they don't like or to support people they do like. That's power. And That is a corruption of what democracy is supposed to be. Look, you and I can disagree on an issue, 10 people. We argue it out, we vote. I get the majority, you get the majority. Somebody wins, somebody loses. I don't think billionaires should be able to buy elections.

I think most people think that. Most people are like, why are corporations or companies allowed to give money to candidates and influence elections? Almost every person I know says that that should be no. Whose responsibility is it to make sure it doesn't happen? Is it ours or is it the politicians?

What happened is there were laws put in place, not as strong as I would like, which did limit the power of big money. What that Supreme Court decision said is what Congress did was unconstitutional, denied big money, their freedom of speech. If you're a billionaire, you have freedom of speech. That means you can run ads all over the day and beat Bernie Sanders, beat anybody, and that's what happened. What we have got to do now is, once again, pass legislation that will do that.

Are there politicians that aren't viable, or aren't influenced by lobbyists?Of course, there are.There are?

Yeah, there's some very good people. But many people look, just to run an example, you're running for election, okay? Your opponent is spending millions of dollars. These TV ads are up there, all right? You think you're going to stand up to powerful special interests who say, You're not the Listen, I like you, but you're going to take that position on that issue. I got to be running millions of dollars of ads against you. What do you think you're going to do if you want to get elected? You could say, Well, go to hell. I'm going to do it anyhow, and many would do. Or you run the risk of seeing that money come against you.

Or you then have to find a lobby that said it has an interest of yours, and you have to try and fight back.

Which is a pretty pathetic thing, right? To some degree, what you have right now, it's a funny thing. Let's say you were running against me. It's not you against me. Your moneyed interest versus my moneyed interest. That's what superpacks are. Now, corporations cannot directly contribute to your campaign, but big money interest, billionaires can contribute to a superpack. You have all these... I would say to you, people, watch the show here. Look at the ads that are on television. They'll be underneath it. You'll see paid for by supporters of an American way of life or whatever the hell it is. Understand that in most cases, these are billionaires putting money into a candidate.

So the Superpack is the loophole. Yep. Is how they do it. So it's not directly from there.

Exactly. There are limits. You wanted to contribute to my campaign. They're pretty stringent limits. You can't contribute. I think it's, I don't know, it's 5,000 bucks. Through a Superpack, you can contribute $100 million. Wow. That's a big issue. We don't talk about it enough. Then you can understand that if you're an ordinary person, who's going to listen to your interests, your needs, right? When billionaires are putting in this money.

Right. If the best I can help you out with is 5,000 bucks, you might show up and shake my hand. But when something really, when the rickshaw hits the road or whatever, you're going to be working for the big dogs for the cash.

And that's the way the system works.

And how do we change that?

Well, first of all, this campaign finance reform is a big deal. Just this one issue, and I'm glad you raised it. We got to do away for Citizens Unite. We have to have restrictions. When I ran for President, the average contribution was $27, roughly speaking, and we got millions of people to contribute. I think there has to be a real stringent limit on the amount of money that any individual can put into the political process. I also believe that we should move to what we call public funding of elections. You're a candidate, you want to run for governor, you want to run for senator. If you show that you have a certain amount of support, you got X number of thousands of people willing to put $5 into your campaign, you can be able to get public funding, and there's a limit on how much you can spend. These are not radical ideas. They exist in many countries around the world, actually.

Yeah, it's pretty normal. Do you think that our election process is still democratic? Do you think it's still...

Yes or no? You want to run for office, can you? Yeah, you can. You got a certain number of signatures. But if you're going to win, and I have 10 times more money than you do, I will beat you 95% of the time. I mean, that's a fact, right? You'll beat me. Maybe if you're really an exceptional candidate, I'm a real idiot, you will beat me once in a while. But by and large, the money people will win. If you're asking me, are we a democracy? In one sense, we are. You can run for office. You can raise your issues. On the other hand, in terms of who has the real power, money people do. I use the term oligarchy. An oligarchy is a society where small numbers of very wealthy people control the economic and political life of the country. I think we are moving rapidly in that direction.

Yeah, I feel like, to me, it feels like an almost privatized communism in a way. That's right.

That's a very good point. It's a very good... It's an interesting way of looking at it.

Yeah, and I don't know exactly sometimes everything of what communism is and what socialism is, but sometimes that's how it feels.

Well, let me give you an example. Can I pick up on your point? Yeah, for sure. Okay. I believe we are the only nation on Earth, major nation, wealthy nation, that does not guarantee health care to all people. Okay? Get in your car, go 50 miles where you are sitting right now in Burlington, Vermont. You have a terrible automobile accident. You're in the hospital for a month in Canada. You know what the bill is when you come out?Zero. Nothing.okay. You know how much the Canadians spend per person on health care compared to us? One-a-half as much. They spend half as much, you don't take out your wallet. If you get sick, you're the doctor that you are. I believe in that type of system. They guarantee health care to all of their people. It's publicly funded the way we fund police departments, fire departments, and libraries. You got to pay taxes for it. But at the end of the day, it is less expensive for your health care. You follow what I'm saying? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, because you're a proponent for health care for all, right? Absolutely. Yes, and you always have been. But the That system seems so rigged because you have... One of the number one causes of bankruptcy in America is medical debt, right? Yes. Unbelievable. People They go in, they don't even know the cost. They sign an agreement that they're going to be billed later, right? Then they get the bill and it's astronomical, and they spend the rest of their life literally a slave to the healthcare system or to the medical billing system or dealing with their insurance, and not to mention, they're sick. The added stress of that, it just feels like something so much better could be done.

That is so pathetic and so sick and so cruel. We I did a hearing on this, and roughly speaking, and I know the viewers will think this is hard to believe, half of the people who are dealing with cancer. Now, cancer is a terrible disease, right?Your point.100%. You're struggling for your life, right? Yeah, man. Maybe you make it, maybe you don't. You got radiation, chemotherapy, bad stuff, right? Half the people who get cancer treatment either end up in bankruptcy or utilizing all of the financial resources of the They're depleted, they're broke. Imagine that. You're going to the hospital, doctors are still, sorry, you got cancer, terrible. You're worried to death, right? Your friends, your family are worried. And then on top of that, what are you worried about? Oh, my God. What am I going to have to sell my house? I have to go bankrupt in order to pay medical bills. That is insane. And if you're trying to deal with cancer, then you got to worry about financial stress. Think it's going to make your condition any better?

No, the worst. You spend half your day, you can't even... In the insurance companies, it's all a rigmarole. It's constant stress. Yes. But how is it set up like that? What is the gimmick between insurers and the hospital? That's the thing I don't know. What's going on?

Take it a step. Let's take a step further. Let me talk about the Canadian system. Okay. Simple system. You pay taxes. Progressive, the more you make, the more you pay. But everyone pays taxes. All right. End result is you walk into the hospital, you sign your name, you have all the treatment you need, and it's good quality health care. You don't have to argue with insurance companies. You get the care that the doctors think you need. End of discussion. In my view, that's the way it should be. It's not just that the insurance companies make huge profits. They do. Not just they pay their CEOs' exorbitant salaries, which they do. Everybody is going to fill out a thousand different forms. It goes crazy filling out forms to see what you're entitled to, what you're not entitled to, deductibles, right?

Yeah, the bureaucracy. It's ridiculous. Is that called bureaucracy?

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. All right, so look, you may have health That's not insurance. But I just talked to a person the other day. We had a meeting. You know what their deductible was? Thirteen $1,000. What does that mean? It means that the first $13,000 of illness, they got to pay out of their own pocket, how many people can make $13,000? If you get hit by a truck and you run up a million dollar bill, yeah, the insurance companies will kick in, presumably. The whole idea that health care in America, unlike every other major country, go to Europe, go to Canada, go to many Latin American countries. It is a bloody right, not a privilege. That's what I think it should be. We have a system that works very well for the insurance companies and the drug companies. In some cases, you're going to pay 10 times more for medication in America than they do in other countries. That's a whole other story we're trying to deal with right now. But it's a corrupt system benefiting the people who own it, not the ordinary American. You go out on the street, go on the street, say to people, Do you think health care is a human right?

All people in America should have it. Yeah, we That's what I'm fighting for.

Who are the lobbyists that are against that then? Who do you think?

Guys from the insurance companies and the drug companies.

Okay, and then what politicians work with those? Why don't we know what politicians are cheating us so that we don't have them in anymore?

All right, you're a smart guy. You tell me, how often have you heard a discussion in this country about how broken the healthcare system is and comparing it to other countries?

A lot.

All right, you've heard a lot about this?

Well, I think I hear a lot I look into it a lot.

You look into it. But how many people even know that we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people? When people say, Oh, Bernie Sands is a radical idea. He thinks everybody should have health care.

Really?

That exists in Canada. It's in France, in England, in Denmark, in Sweden, in every bloody country on Earth, virtually, rich country.

So it's not a radical. Even Mars, I heard they have health care there now.

I wouldn't be surprised.

Now, some people would say that the argument against that would be that then There's less personal responsibility to take care of yourself, right? But do you...

Really?

But that would be in other countries anyway, right? That would be anywhere.

If, God forbid, you or I came down with a serious illness, Am I going to blame you for coming down with cancer? Is that a personal responsibility?

That's a good point. Yeah, probably not. That might just be a ghost of an argument.

But to pick up on that point, what should one of the priorities of a good healthcare system be? It should be to try to keep people healthy. So it should encourage people to have good diet, to do exercise, to stay away from addictive stuff, right? Do we do a particularly good job on that? Not so much. Because where do the insurance companies make their money? Hey, if you're really sick, pretty good. We keep you healthy? Not so much.

Are they one of the largest lobbyist groups? Yeah.

Wow. Very, very. They're huge. We started this discussion. You talk about privatize communism, whatever the expression you used, is I believe that Medicare is the health insurance program for the elderly. Medicaid is for lower-income people. I think we should combine all these and guarantee health care to all people. But your point is that in the private sector, we are moving to a monopoly, and it's true. People like United Health, unbelievable. United Health, to the best of my knowledge, has under contract or hires 10% of the doctors in America. Got that? One insurance company. One company. 10% of the doctors.

How would you even start to undo something like that? What's a realistic path to reform? Thanks.

Great question. Because I wrote the bill, I know the answer.

Okay.

Right now, you have Medicare, which is a very popular program. It's life-saving to many elderly people. That was developed in the 1960s by President Lyndon Johnson. Okay, very popular program. You got Medicaid for the Lower-Income People, also a popular program. What I would do is over a four-year period, take Medicare. First thing you do is expand Medicare because Medicare does not now cover dental, hearing, or vision. A lot of people can't afford to go to a dentist. Got me? Yeah. Okay, you expand it. Then you say, right now, to be eligible for Medicare, you got to be 65 years of age. First year, lower to 55. You're 57, congratulations. You You don't have to worry about whether you have insurance on your job. You want to hear something else crazy about the private insurance system. You work for a big corporation, they give you good health insurance. He works for McDonald's, virtually nothing. That's pretty crazy. Where you work determines the health care you got. Anyhow, so we go from 65 down to 55, 55 next year down to 45, 45 to 35. Fourth year, you cover everybody. Gradual absorption. So you have a Medicare system system that covers all people.

You no longer have to pay any more deductibles or copayments, no more premiums. You get your health care because you're an American citizen. Will your taxes go up? They may. Will it be less than what you pay right now in private insurance? Yes, it will be. It's a good deal.

Can we afford that as a country, you think? True. Yeah?

We are now spending over $4 trillion on health care. We spend double. Here's another point to be made. We We spend twice as much per person on health care as any other country because it's designed to make money for the insurance companies and the drug companies.

Wait, so explain that to me. We spend twice as much on health care-We are spending right now-as any other country per person, but we're But the money isn't going towards them getting… We'd almost save the money just by… You got it. All right.

Here, example. Is that true? Yes, it's true. Check it out. It is true. Chairman of the bloody committee. Yes, it is true.

All right. Bloody, literally.

People are I can't believe it. All right. If I buy a car tomorrow for $80,000, you buy a car for $40,000. What is the presumption? Should my car be a better car than yours? Yes. Okay. I'm spending twice as much, all right? But I got a really much great, better car than you have. All right. We are spending per person, per person, over $13,000. Spending $13,000 on you, $13,000 on me, $13,000 on a five-year-old, $13,000 on a 90-year-old. All right? Thirteen thousand per person, over $4 trillion nationally. Canadians are spending about half of that per person.

And they're taking care of everybody. Yes.

And the British are spending less than that. Other countries a little bit less.

But does that affect us with the population number that we have?

No, it doesn't matter. I mean, per person.

Got it.

I'm not talking about ingrosse, but per person.

How do you stop hospitals from overcharging? That's a lot of it. It's a corrupt system. If they know that the government's going to pick up the tab. Good.

Very good question. The answer is what they do. It's not like we're inventing something. Other countries do it. What they say to hospitals is, Look, you're not going to be charging Theo when he's in the hospital. You're not going to be charging him a nickel. But we know, roughly speaking, in a year, what you are going to be. You need a certain number of doctors and radiologists and nurses and all that stuff. Here is your budget. It's like a police department. Here's your budget in a year. You need more. Maybe we can come up with more. You get what we call It's a global budget.

It's like the Dodgers or something.

But you got a global budget. You got a budget. You take care of all the needs. It's not per person. You get it. What you do there, we spend as a nation, one of the other insanity of this healthcare system, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on billing. You know what I mean by that?

Medical billing, yeah.

All right. I'm the insurance companies. First of all, you got to fill out forms. I hire people who are not doctors or They're just bill...Oh, yeah.

All right, you got bill collectors. You go to a hospital, go down to the basement, you got a hundred, well, depending on the size of the hospital, dozens of people. They don't see a patient. They're just filling out forms.

Yeah, half the Philippines is people just doing medical billing over the phone.

There are countries where you show your card, and that's the end of the discussion. But we waste hundreds of billions of dollars just on billing people. There's another issue I want to discuss. Life expectancy. What do we know about life expectancy.

We're getting pretty long in the tooth. No. We're not living long. No.

Compared to whom?

Compared to probably Vietnam.

I'm sure, maybe. All right. But Yes. We are the richest country on Earth. Do we live longer lives than other people?

No, we don't.

We do not. In fact, we're pretty far down the list. Why is that?

Well, I think it could be that we're not taking as good care of ourselves. Okay. I think it could be that we don't have as good a health care. That's right.

All right. I think that's two out of three. All right. Now, there are two facts. We, country, Japan, other countries will live four or five years, six years longer than we do. That's a lot. You know what I mean? Yeah. So they'll live, I forgot what it is.

8% or something.

Yeah, right. It's a lot. But here's another fact that is really unbelievable. It's not just that we live shorter lives despite spending so much on health care. The gap between the 1% and the working class is 10 years. If you're rich, you'll live as long as people in other countries. You'll have a long life, the '80s or whatever it is. If you're working class, you're going to live 10 years younger. How does that happen, do you think? Wow.

Because just stress, burnout.

Man, all right. I'm going to sign you up there. You got it.

Look, I think I like a lot of the things that you think about.

Let's deal with the issue of stress. Okay. Yes, you're right. It is twofold, it seems to me. Number one is if you're rich, you go to any doctor you want when you want to get paid for all the drugs you need, right? Yeah. That's a real advantage. But above and beyond that, working-class people live under enormous stress, and that takes a toll on you. Takes a toll on you physically and mentally. We have parts of this country where life expectancy is actually in decline. Got it? People are living shorter lives.Because of the stress.Because of the stress. With that stress and the hopelessness, they turn to drugs, they turn to alcohol, they turn to suicide. Yeah. All right? Bad stuff.

Oh, yeah. I think those are things that... They don't even take those factors into consideration when they're making all of these... You call to get your medical bill. It's a nightmare. It's like you almost want to. This is crazy. There's been times when I've been like, I would rather take my own life than sit here and make another fucking call. I'm not even sick. I'm just somebody trying to get to the bottom of the-All right. Why does that happen? Because it's loopholes. They don't want you to get paid. You got it.

Not that hard. Look, you pay me money through insurance, right? So you're sick. I'm supposed to pay your bills, right? If I drive you crazy, you're going to say, Screw it. I'll hold with I'll pay the goddamn thing myself. It's not worth it.Yeah. Good. I'm the insurance company is like, Right on, man. That's exactly what I wanted.

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Well, all that I can tell you is money talks to a larger range. It's not to suggest that members of Congress are evil or terrible people that want people to suffer. They don't. But you have a system which almost says, Oh, you can't even think about guaranteeing health care to all people. Oh, my God, what You're a far leftist. Are you a Communist man? What are you? You don't want to take all the insurance companies, hard working people. You're not even allowed to talk about those issues. Meanwhile, we're the only country that doesn't guarantee health care.

Yeah, my one caveat, and I don't know exactly what caveat means, but I think my one left turn on it would be, yeah, how much responsibility then are people going to just have totally less responsibility and just be taking pills. I don't know. Maybe that's just a crazy thought. But if it's not happening in other countries, then maybe that's a good example that it wouldn't happen here.

It is an issue in other countries. For example, you're a lonely, older person. Maybe you're living by yourself. I'm feeling lonely. Maybe I'll go to the doctor when I'm not really sick. Oh, yeah, for sure. Will people abuse it? Yeah. So what? I mean, it happens, and you try to discourage that. So no system is perfect. But the bottom line, as Americans, we have to answer a very simple question. Is health care a right of all people, whether you're rich, poor, medium, whatever you are? I think the answer is yes.

Well, I think especially when you start to look at other places that we spend our money, it would be very hard not to say we should certainly spend it there first. It's just fucking unbelievable that we're this powerful of a country, and we don't have an emote… It's like we lost our emotional…

That's a good point. I'll tell you something else. Let me get off of health care for a second.

Okay, before we get off, I want to… I know that you guys have a bill… Because I have a group that I've worked with, done volunteer stuff with, called Power to the Patients. It's notating the prices of... Say you get an MRI, the hospital now has to let you know that the MRI is $700, so you can call the hospital down the street and see that there it's $550, so you can make a choice, so you know up front. That's good. You're not getting a $10,000 bill later on. You got it.

It's called the Transparency Bill.

Transparency Bill. Is it passed yet or no? No, it has not.

I'm working with it with a guy named Senator Braun from Indiana. He was a Republican. Good guy. Look, it's exactly the issue. People walk into an emergency room. They walk into a hospital. You have any idea? Here, Theo, this is what we're going to do for you, blah, blah, blah, blah, I mean, people go in in surgery. They come up hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.

It's crazy.

It is. It's insane. All right. The point is, look, I should have the right to know. You want to hear? You think it's crazy? Let me tell you how crazy. It's even crazier than you think it is. Okay. You have Blue Cross Insurance. I have another insurance company. Same hospital. You go and get an MRI. Your insurance company will pay $500. My insurance company pays $700. Even in the same hospital for the same treatment, the price is different, not to mention different hospitals.

It's just wild that they can do that. It's almost like, I'm going to go to the grocery store, I'm going to get an apple, I'm going to eat it, and then after I eat it, you're going to tell me how much it costs. You got it. That is-They're like, It's $400. You're like, Is it from the Garden of Eden? But it's even worse.

You're exactly right. But it's even worse because you had to go to the hospital.

Right. Yes. It wasn't a choice that you made. I know you guys had launched an investigation, even because this is current about Ozempic, and the cost of Ozempic in different countries. Because I was dating a girl, not dating, but we met up a couple of times at night or whatever. It's like she was leaving one morning to drive to Mexico to get Ozempic. I'm like, What are you? You're just driving in the middle of the... At 5:00 AM to go to... What's going on? She's like, Well, it's just way cheaper there. I'm like, But is it as regulated? I don't know. But I know that in some countries, the prices on it are so different. In Canada, it's $150 something. Got it. In America, it's $700 and something. Close to $1,000. It's close to $1,000 for a diabetes medication. I know some people use it forWeight loss. Yeah, weight loss or look the way they want, spring break or whatever. But that's crazy. Why isn't it just the same? Is it because they know they can charge us more because we have more money?

That's half of it, but only half of That's a great question. Thanks for asking it. All right. That's what my committee deals with every day. We've had, by the way, some success in the last few years, and the Biden people have done a good job on this. All right. Why is it that... I want to make sure I'm right here. Well, certainly in Canada, it's about 150 bucks for Ozempic. Here, it's close to a thousand. Why is that? What the Canadians do and what countries around the world do, what makes common sense, they purchase a lot of the drug, right? All right. So they sit down with the drug companies. They said, Look, we have hundreds of thousands of people are going to use your drug. We're going to sit down and we're going to negotiate a price, right?

Right. Of course, certainly after a few months, you should be able to see the averages and make a good business choice. Right.

If you're a businessman and you're buying something for me, you're buying thousands of items, I'm going to have to give you a discount if I want your business, right? Certainly. That's the way the business works. So that's what every country on Earth does. They sit down with the drug company. Some do it more stringently than others. Up until very, very recently, there have been no requirements, zero, for the drug companies to negotiate anything. They come in and they say they have the board. What do you think we can get, Harry? Sitting around the board of directors. Well, I think you can get $10,000 a year. No, I think you can go high. They can get $20,000. Look, we get what the market will bear. The government has no power, charge of anything you want. That's what they do. You got now, it's not just Ozempic, in which we pay, in some cases, 15 times more than European countries. It's all kinds of drugs. The answer to your question is, up until recently, and the Biden administration has done a good job of this, there have been no capabilities of the government, Medicare, anybody else, to negotiate prices.

They charge you anything they want and as much as they possibly can. What we did It's part of a bill called the Inflation Reduction Act. Stupid title to the bill, but that's what it was. Finally have that the drug company is going to have to sit down with Medicare and negotiate prices. They're going to be announcing some interesting results pretty soon. For the first time, there is the beginning of negotiating prices, and it will lower prices. Second of all, what we've done on my committee, a lot of people have asthma, and they use inhalers. I don't know if you know anybody used an asthma inhaler.

Yeah.

All right. Ten times more expensive in the United States. We shamed some of the big companies. They lowered it down to some of them to $35. Making some progress on lowering the cost of prescription charges. But to answer your question, up until a couple of years ago, drug companies could charge any price they wanted for any reason.

That could be changing with the Inflation Act?

Yeah, Inflation Reduction Act. What it basically says is the 10 top selling drugs, they're going to have to come then and sit down and negotiate Medicare price. That is, by the way, what the Veterans Administration does. The VA in America does a good job. They don't pay outrageous prices. They negotiate, and that's what Medicare is beginning to do.

Yeah, if you can't breathe, you're almost a fish if you can't breathe. Let's talk about some policy. The price transparency, that's happening now? People have to show their prices or they don't?

No, they don't. We still have them past that bill.

Do you think it's going to happen?

It's a popular bill. I think we have a good shot to get it done.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, man, it makes me just sick because somebody's already sick. You know they're sick. If it were your family, you want them to just sit there and just be angry. They're on the phone every day. Then they don't have any energy for their own family.

You're absolutely right.

I just can't imagine choosing, especially when you're already making a ton of money, choosing to make a little more money. What do you need?

But now you're raising even another issue.

What do you need?

You're talking about corporate greed here, but that's another issue.

Yeah, I know you hate it. We all hate it. I think America is at the point where the screw has been turned so fucking tight that I think, yeah, it starts to create radicalization, starts to create a lot of stuff. Let's talk about the election coming up right now or just the current candidacy. In 2020, I believe that's when you ran, I wanted you and Donald Trump to be on the same ticket, right? That was a thought that I had because in my mind, I'm just a regular guy. I don't know a ton about politics. I felt both you all were outliers. That's how it seemed to me. These guys are both outliers. They're both different but seem to be doing their own thing. You've been outspoken against Trump, right? Do you think he's not... Is he doing his own thing or is he-Yes, he is.

Look, I will give Trump credit. He does his own thing. Okay. He's a very different type of politician, and that's clear. But this is what I do think, Theo. While I respect somebody who has the guts to do their own thing and be very much a nontraditional politician, which is what he is. Here's the fact. He lies all the time. I got four kids, and I got seven grandchildren, and we really have to ask ourselves whether the guy who is the leader of the country, whether that's the example that we want. I have a lot of friends in politics who differ with me, more conservative people. They're not liars. We disagree. So you and I disagree on something. It's fine. So what? It's called American democracy.

Yeah, it used to be fine. That's right. But Trump really is, I use the word pathological.

When you see him, I tell you, not everything, but a lot of lies. Okay, and I think we can't have that. When he was in the private sector, before Before he became involved in politics, he was sued. His company was sued 4,000 times. And above and beyond his political views, which I disagree with. But then, those you can discuss, I don't think you want somebody leading this country who is shady.

So you're saying he doesn't set the best example of-Exactly.

Look, you got kids. Do you have any kids?

I don't have any yet. All right.

I hope you do. And you want kids to be honest, right? You don't want them to be bullies and picking on the weak. So that from a character point of view, I don't like it. But also, let me give another example. I happen to believe, I don't know what your views are, that women have a right to control their own bodies. I don't want, as a man, somebody saying, Oh, Bernie, you can't have a vasectomy. You can't do this. My business, not the government's. And Trump does not hold that view. I happen to believe strongly that climate change is real. Just a week or two ago-I saw your podcast with Billinkoff? Bill McKibben, of course. Bill McKibben, yeah. Bill is-Yeah, I wanted to speak to him.

He seems really interesting. Smart guy. Is he?

I've known him for years.

Yeah, because I want to learn more about… You just always hear about climate change, and so, yeah, I want to learn more about it. Good.

I hope you do. I'm sure Bill would be happy to go on the show with you.

That'd be cool.

If you wanted, I can give him a call. Awesome. In all of the scientists' degree, when you put carbon into the atmosphere, it creates a ceiling there. The Earth warms up. Then because of the Earth warming up, you have extreme weather disturbances. You come from Louisiana, do you? Oh, yeah. We're sinking. You've seen the terrible floods there. We've had them here in Vermont.

They have a Savannah right now going on. Right, that's right.

Floods, the likes of which we've never seen. You're seeing drought. Saudi Arabia, temperature reach 125 degrees, which people are dying by the hundreds. So Trump does not believe that climate change is real. If he becomes President, that means not only will the United States, the whole world will give up. I don't know what this planet is going to look like in 10, 15 years.

Do you say that because America is really the leader of the forefront of looking out for climate change?

We're the largest economy in the world. China is a bigger polluter than we are right now.

Oh, yeah, dude. They all smoke, too. A lot of Chinese people. You have that kid that smokes on that bicycle or whatever. He smoking 11 cigarettes.

But if we say, Hey, the hell with it, then other countries are going to...

Because it's a global problem. Then everybody's going to be like, Oh, screw it.

You got everybody backs off. Then I don't know what this planet. You talk about floods, it's going to get worse and worse. Heat waves, worse. Drought, worse. Migrations. There are millions, hundreds of millions of people, little farmers in poor countries. They can't farm anymore. I disagree with Trump on that. Those are some of the reasons why I'm strongly against them.

Those are important issues, certainly, yeah. I don't think everybody can have their own thoughts on different issues. Do you see why people like him?

I do. Because he's very disalming. He gets up there and he says whatever the hell he wants. He is not.

Yeah, he doesn't seem like he's by the book. That was a thing. He is not by the book. That's the thing. That's the thing. The same as you. It's like he's speaking for... It feels like they're speaking for themselves, right? Whether you agree with maybe what they believe, they believe what they're saying. That, I think, comes through-I think you're right.clearly.

To people. I think he's certainly unusual, gets up there, and he rants, and he does his thing, and he's not necessarily, I'm sure his advisors go crazy, but he's not reading off.

He doesn't have 14. Oh, Kid Rock is one of his advisors. Look, I love Kid Rock, but I don't know if every advice of his is the best. But now, some of it is, that's for sure, but some of it may not be. You're right.

A lot of these politicians have 18 different consultants. You can't use You can't say that.

That makes it miserable. He's not like that.

People find that appealing. I get it. But again, I don't think you could have a pathological lawyer. Somebody doesn't believe in women, have the right to control their bodies, who doesn't believe in climate That changed. I think that's bad. By the way, I'm not quite so sure, but she believes in democracy as well.

Yeah. Well, and look, that's how you feel, and it's important. You've always had your own feelings, and I appreciate you always having them and sharing what they are. Do you feel like whenever the people tried to assassinate, did you think it was deeper than that? Do you think it was just some Reddit jockey just on a-First of all, it was horrible.

I mean, I disagree with Trump about everything, but the idea of people assassinating Trump or anybody else is-Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. It is horrible. I can't give you the words. It's just terrible. We cannot have that in American politics. My own guess, and I'm not an expert, I'm sure there are a lot of, the conspiratorial theories that are out there. I think you have... We've seen it before. You've seen seemingly normal people walking into schools with guns doing horrible things, right? Yeah. I think you had whatever reason. I don't want to even speculate why this young man did what he did.

You just think it was a young man who just that was it.

That's what the evidence seems to suggest so far.

But you didn't hear anything else. You guys don't hear anything else as Congress people. You don't hear anything deeper than that. I don't know any great secrets that you don't know. Do you think that Kamal Harris is the best person to run against Donald Trump right now?

Well, she is the person, and that's-And that won't change, probably, huh? She'll be the Democratic candidate. I've known Kamla for a number of years. We're not best friends, but I've known her. She was in the Senate for a short period. She's very smart, and she's determined above and beyond her views on the issues, which I support most of them, not all. You got to give credit to somebody, a black woman, to move up a lot of that. That ain't easy stuff. There's a lot of resistance to that. She's persistent, she's strong, and I respect that. I think she'll be a good candidate. I was interested that Trump, apparently, backed out of a debate with her on ABC. I have debated her, as a matter of fact.

She's tough. She's tough. Was there a chance that you were going to get that as an independent? Can you get been plotted with the Democratic Party and put in? Was there even a call about it or anything? No.

I ran in '16. I ran against Hillary Clinton, and I ran in '20.

Yeah, I remember. I felt like you didn't get treated fairly, to be honest with you. I didn't.

That's what happens when you take on the establishment. What happened is we won the first three primaries, and then the establishment got very, very nervous, and they got a whole lot of candidates in the Democratic primary. They said, Hey, be a good idea if you all dropped out, let Joe Biden be the one candidate. People rallied around them.

Is there a call that you get, and it's like, You're not going to move forward? Is it just news articles? How does the establishment work?

What happens is I won the popular vote in Iowa. I won the New Hampshire primary. I won the Nevada primary, and those were the first three. Then, from pages in the New York Times, Democratic establishment, very nervous. Bernice Dantzis could win the whole... We were doing very well in the polls. I think, behind the scenes, people thought there were like 15 different candidates, and they were splitting up the vote, and That's how I was not necessarily getting over 50%, I was getting more than other people. So I was on the way to victory. They said, Look, Bernie shouldn't be the candidate for a variety of reasons. We don't want him to candidate. Drop out. Then on one day, a lot of people, one or two days, a lot of people dropped out. It was Joe Biden and me, and Joe had a lot of support, and all these people came behind them, and that's what happened. Let me also say, having said that, Biden is a friend of mine. I think he has done a very good job over the last three and a half years, and I'm working very hard to see that Kammerler is elected our next president.

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Com. It started to seem like people were losing faith in the media Media. I feel like that that's had a huge effect on society. It's created a lot of opportunities for what are often labeled as conspiracy theories, but then often end up being truth just because... Not all, but yeah, often end up being truths or having realness to them because the news media isn't even… It's like they all just go down these same similar paths, and it doesn't even feel real anymore. The fact that you and I are talking is wild. It's like, I fucking wouldn't talk to me.

Look, there's bad news and good news. The good news is you got a program, and by millions of people doing it. Yeah. Part of that is that people not necessarily We believe, CBS, NBC, ABC, or even Fox or anybody else. Let me tell you what I think about that, because I think you're touching on an important issue. We talk about health care, we talk about media. You have about eight large media conglomerates, Comcast and all these guys.They're.

Huge.serious..

Exactly.they own... People turn on theirClear channel.

You got it.

They're huge. They don't own one station. They own They own radio stations, they own TV stations.Oh, it's miserable. They own movies producers. These are owned by very large billionaires, big companies owned by billionaires. They will discuss issues from here to here. I'll give you an example about Medicare for All. We should be having a tremendous discussion why we're the only country on Earth not to guarantee health care. It doesn't take place on television. We should be talking about massive income and wealth inequality. There are three people in America who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You think that's appropriate?

No, sir. Okay. I think there should be a limit on how much a person can earn. Okay. To be honest with you, it may be some millions, but I don't think it should be billions. I agree with you.

I agree with you, actually. I think most Americans would. When's the last time you've seen that discussion on NBC? It ain't going to take place. We have-But that's what the people want, though. Yes, that is exactly. That's why you're a success and why other people with very limited resources, if you like, because you don't see that type of discussion. I just did a poll. My campaign did a poll just on these issues. Talking about issues that working class people want and need that are almost never discussed in politics or in the corporate media. The answer is people are hurting. They want change. No one's talking about it. Yeah, it's heartbreaking.

I don't know, the people don't even get thought of anymore, it feels like a lot of times. Here's the toughest part, I think, Bernie, is as a person who has felt like in their life, maybe their father died in a war, their grandfather died in a war, and they've been trying to pay their taxes and be a considerate person in their town or their country. After a while, those good people start. It starts to erode a little because they don't feel like... And they lose their sense of purpose. When you lose the fabric of your society, a lot of people, that's how they... They didn't even realize it. A lot of us don't even realize we identify as an American. When you realize, well, America, it's nothing, but it's a shell LLC for fucking big corporations. Then what am I? I'm just an idiot. You almost feel ashamed of yourself. Or you can. Anyway, I don't know. A lot of that stuff, I just don't see how people think that that's good or how you're going to still be able to get people to buy in.

Theo, I think you said it better than I did. I mean, I agree with you. I think a lot of people are ashamed. They're given up. They're hurting. Many of these people have fought and died, or their families have fought and died in wars, and they're good people. Maybe they're nurses and business people.

Yeah, anything. Crossing Guard, Mailman.

Exactly. They believe in their community. Meanwhile, they're getting ripped off by people on top politically and economically.

Well, even the radio, like you're saying, it's like you used to have a newspaper and it meant something. Your community meant something. It used to be that your grandpa worked at the factory and they made the table that you have in your home. Everything had a story to it. There's some connection. Now it's like we're buying stuff from countries that they're making it. They don't care. We're using it. We don't care. There's no story. Nobody has any… There's no thread. The thread just gets thin.

That's a very profound point you just made.

How do we get it back? It ain't easy. But I think you hit the nail on the head.

People will… You're in, right now, you're in Vermont, which is one of the smallest states in the country. It's a very rural state. Beautiful. Burlington is the largest city with 40,000. I used to be mayor here. But you go into small towns, everybody knew everybody. Often, they were dairy farmers. We had a lot of dairy farmers. People work really hard being a dairy farmer.

Oh, yeah. I used to work at Cold Stone Creamers for a while. So not the same, but I get it.

But then milking cows five o'clock in the morning on a cold winter day, ain't easy work. But it was like everybody knew each other. Nobody They cheated each other. It was a sense of... Then you have town meetings once a year, and people argue about the school budget, all that stuff. We are losing that big time for a lot. Maybe next time we'll talk about that. But we're losing that, as you indicated, for a lot of reasons. If we don't get it back, I worry about the future of this country.

Yeah, that is a bigger topic. I've heard you talk about the 32-hour work week, man. It's intriguing. The second I heard that, I'm like, I'm in.

I tell you, it got a lot of response.

Yeah, I think there was a poll. I don't know if it was a news week. I don't know where it was. Yeah, the 32-hour work week. One of the reasons behind it is why.

Okay, here's why. All right, let me back it up a little bit. Okay. I'm going to ask you a question. Are you ready for a tough question?

Let's do it. All right.

Over the last 50 years, five, zero years, massive changes in technology. Fifty years ago, they didn't have this stuff. Worker productivity has gone way up, right? You're a worker now playing with technology, with machinery, whether it's a computer, whether it's factory technology. You're producing a lot more, correct? In terms of real-You're producing more because you have machines that can help you.Exactly.Got it.

Okay. Much more, by the way. Right. So a machine can do the work of 30 men in a day. You got it.

Whatever it may be. In term, despite all of that increased worker productivity, is the A worker of today in real inflation accounted for dollars making more or less money than that worker was doing, or a similar type worker 50 years ago? What's the answer?

I would say less. So less based on inflation and everything. The worker's making less now than they were then.

In real dollars. Yeah, we call real dollars. Inflation accounted for dollars. Real dollars. How insane is that? If that worker is now producing so much more than the year she did for the US.

Oh, I see what you're saying. So now if a worker is operating a machine, and that machine is doing the work of 20 workers, then why isn't there some benefit to the worker?

You would think that that guy's make it... Well, that guy's make it more money, right? Hey, you're producing a lot more. Or widgets or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A hundred guys. Got it? Okay, got it? Mm-hmm. Okay. Make a must. Where did we lot money come? Who benefited from it? The data. Alex, prime. Over that same period of time, there was a study that there was a 50 trillion It's not typical. Redistribution of wealth to your bottom, 90% to the top, 1%. So getting back to the 32 out of working, it's a simple idea. If you are a worker producing a hell of a lot more, that was the case 30 years ago, You should benefit from an increased technology. One of the breakout people, as you mentioned, I'm only going to live in under a lot of stress, right? If you can low-adapt work week without loss of pay.

Right. You're saying that there needs to be some keep back to them because if everybody's earning more, if the company's earning more. Yeah, some of the agree. It's just scary, man. I don't know. Yeah, it's just scary. I want to get into... Oh wait, but what about, would you have to raise the pay of people then? I guess you would because Yeah.

If you reduce, what we are doing here is reducing the work week, which is from 40 to 32, which Wideway has not been changed since 1944.

Yeah, and that's when people had to crops and everything. People were just... People were snitting by lightning bug.

We are a much wealthier nation now, but I want that wealth to be distributed a little bit. Yeah. By the way, we're almost done.

We're almost done. Yeah. We got just one more issue I want to ask, and it'll be quick. Last question. If you were to look at... If there's somebody out there today who's like a guy who you were who wanted to see change, who started protesting on campuses and got involved and became a mayor and wants to get into really thinks that they can make a difference, what path do they need to try for themselves now with so much lobbying and stuff going on? What would you tell them?

All right, first of all, what you're involved in is some politics would change. Being an elected official is one way of bringing up a change. Let's talk the other way. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was never elected in anything, right? He had a profound impact on this country. Never raped in anything, right? You're seeing young people who are concerned about climate change on campuses. Go away your passions. Your passion may be different than what's your issue? I don't need this. Work on that issue. Read people, educate, organize, read people. If you then decide, Hey, you may go long enough for the state legislature. Never long enough for times. I want to get my hands dirty in politics. Do it. But first of all, don't do it just because I want to get a lot. That's bad. Do it because you believe inside it. Getting elected will help you do it fine. If not, you could do it in other ways.

Bernie Sanders, thank you so much for your time, man.

Thank you very much. Let me just say this. Congratulations on your program. What programs like this do. I'm on TV a lot. We don't like it. Seven seconds to make a point. Can't make it seven seconds. To be argued, you can have a serious discussion about serious issues is really great. I thank you for the opportunity and thank you for what you do.

Thank I've always been a proponent, and thank you for just being an outspoken person who believes in things and moves forward with those beliefs.

For 50 years now, hip hop has been a reflection of culture and society.

That includes stories of struggle and pain, social injustice, racial inequality, the marginalization of communities.

Today, we confront a healthcare system that has been rigged against all of us. Hospitals force patients to sign contracts for services without ever showing us actual prices, stifling competition, overcharging without accountability. And if we can't pay these same contracts allow them to take everything we own, creating so much fear that millions and millions of Americans refuse to enter a hospital, putting our health and our lives at stake.

This is an American humanitarian crisis. We love our nurses, and we need our doctors.

But hospitals and insurance rigging a system to make profits off of people that's in struggle is unforgivable. We demand prices. And transparency in health care. How to the patients.