'These Guys Want To Make Money Off The Air You Breathe': Bernie Sanders Blasts Elon Musk And VA Cuts

Forbes Breaking News

At a "Fight Oligarchy" event in Lenore, West Virginia on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke about recent cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs and attempts by Elon Musk to privatize the department.

Transcript

00:00I want to thank you for letting me speak. I appreciate it. I'm a commander of the

00:07Disabled American Veterans here in West Virginia, one chapter, and I want to ask

00:12this question for all the veterans in our state. What is the bill that just got

00:19passed? What's it going to do to our medical in this state? How is it going to

00:24affect the VA medical system? The bill will, we estimate, I've heard, take 50,000

00:35West Virginians off of Medicaid. In terms of the VA stuff was not dealt with in the

00:41big beautiful bill. That's something separate. What that is about, let me thank

00:47you for asking. What's your first name? Wayne? Okay. Wayne asked a very good question.

00:54What Musk and his friends originally wanted to do was to lay off 80,000 workers

01:06at the Veterans Administration. Can you guess, Wayne, what that will mean to

01:10health care for veterans in this country? It'll be a disaster. Okay? We push back.

01:15I was on the phone with the heads of every, the Legion, the DAV, the VFW. I, you know,

01:22talked to them all. I think they push back. So instead of 80,000, they're now

01:26talking about laying off 30,000, which will be a bad situation. In my view, now

01:34why are they, why does Musk and others talk about privatization and going after

01:39the VA? Who has an idea as to why? Wayne, what do you think? Money. What do they want?

01:45Eventually. Do you think they like the VA? You got it. Wayne hit the nail on the head.

01:53These guys want to make money off the air you breathe, the water you drink, everything.

01:58Right now we have a VA system. Is it perfect? No. Do we need more doctors and nurses? Yes.

02:04Do we need to expedite getting benefits out? But we made some progress. PAC Act helped a

02:09lot of people. Those are workers who were exposed to toxic waste pits in the Middle East

02:16and elsewhere got sick. We finally got them the benefits that they deserve, right? Healthcare

02:21and other benefits. What the Musks of the world want to do is privatize Social Security, privatize

02:29the VA, the Postal Service, you name it, because there's money that can be made. So keep an eye

02:35on that one. Our job is to strengthen the VA, not to privatize it. All right. Maybe one or

02:42two more questions. Here. Young man, right here. Here you go.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended