Bernie Sanders Slams 'Big Money Interests' And Billionaire Influence In Political Campaigns

Forbes Breaking News

During a rally on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke about the influence of money and lobbyists on the political and legislative process.

Transcript

00:01Today in America you have more concentration of economic ownership.

00:07In sector after sector, whether it's media, financial services, agriculture, transportation,

00:14you name it.

00:15A handful of giant corporations control what is produced and what you pay for those products.

00:25But what the economy is, it's not just income and wealth inequality, where the richest people

00:32have never had it so good.

00:33It's not just concentration of ownership.

00:37We are also looking at six major media conglomerates that own and control what you see, hear and

00:47read.

00:48Do you ever wonder why some of the most important issues facing working people never

00:55get discussed?

00:56Well, that's kind of why.

00:59Do you ever ask yourself how come we don't hear about what other countries around the

01:04world are doing in terms of healthcare or education?

01:08That is kind of why.

01:11So you've got a handful of billionaires controlling the economy and they control the media.

01:16But that's not enough.

01:18They also now control our political system.

01:26So let us be clear.

01:28And that is especially since this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision.

01:38You have a political system now where billionaires can spend as much money as they want to elect

01:48their candidates or defeat candidates who stand with the working class.

01:57This is how the system works.

01:59Elon Musk, our friend again, contributed $270 million to elect Donald Trump president.

02:12And his reward, these guys don't make an investment without asking for something in return.

02:18They don't make these donations out of the goodness of their heart.

02:22And what he got was the ability to run the United States government for three or four months

02:29and to exercise his extreme right-wing ideology.

02:34So what Mr. Musk was able to do at a time when Social Security Administration is understaffed,

02:42seniors are having trouble getting information about their benefits, 7,000 Social Security employees

02:50were fired, at a time when we are not adequately staffing the Veterans Administration so that

02:59the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend us get the health care and benefits

03:04they deserve.

03:09Musk and his friends wanted to cut 80,000 employees from the Veterans Administration.

03:25But it's not just elections, it's important to understand, and I tell you this as a United

03:31States Senator, it's not just the power of money in buying elections, that's really bad.

03:36They are also involved in the legislative process every day with all of their lobbyists, etc.

03:43This is how it works.

03:46Trump and the Republican leadership proposed this big, beautiful bill.

03:55This so-called big, beautiful bill is, in my view, the most horrific and destructive piece

04:03of legislation ever passed in the modern history of this country.

04:15What this legislation does, in short, in brief, is make massive cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable

04:23Care Act, nutrition and education in order to give $1 trillion dollars in tax breaks to the

04:33top 1%, and $900 billion dollars to large, profitable corporations.

04:45Now this is how money in politics works.

04:50If you think that many Republicans, especially those who represent low-income and working-class

04:56districts, didn't know what was in the bill, you would be mistaken.

05:02They knew what was in the bill.

05:03And one guy, I don't know if you know his name, and a guy named Tom Tillis, he's a senator

05:08from North Carolina, Tillis is a conservative Republican guy.

05:13But he actually did something unusual.

05:14He read the bill.

05:15This guy reads the bill, and he says, holy moly, hundreds of thousands of people in North Carolina

05:26are going to lose their health insurance if I vote for this bill.

05:30So he gets up and he says, I cannot vote for this bill.

05:33It would be destructive for my constituents.

05:36You know what happened?

05:38Within minutes, Donald Trump was on social media ripping the hell out of this guy.

05:44Billionaires were announcing, you standing up to the president, you don't like the legislation

05:50we brought forth, you are out of here.

05:52We're going to run somebody against you.

05:56And they have the resources to do that.

05:59In a very short time, Senator Tillis says, forget it, I'm not running for re-election.

06:07The point is, the point is that if people stand up for justice, stand up for what is right,

06:16they will be punished by big money interests.

06:21And that is a system that we can no longer tolerate because day after day, Washington becomes further

06:29and further removed.

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