Bernie Sanders EXPOSES Trump's MOST CORRUPT Rule
US Senator Bernie Sanders delivered a fiery speech ahead of the midterm elections, launching sharp attacks on Donald Trump, Elon Musk, billionaires, and what he called America’s growing “oligarchy.” Sanders warned that the United States is facing an “unprecedentedly dangerous moment,” accusing wealthy elites of increasing inequality while threatening democracy. Declaring that “we are going to defeat authoritarianism,” Sanders urged Americans to unite and fight back. He also criticized Trump-era tax cuts, warned about AI replacing workers, and demanded stronger action on healthcare, wages, housing, and economic justice.
#BernieSanders #TrumpVsSanders #ElonMusk #USPolitics #SandersSpeech #TrumpNews #BernieSandersSpeech #AmericanOligarchy #USMidterms #BreakingNews #EconomicJustice #TaxCuts #AIJobsCrisis #HealthcareReform #FightAuthoritarianism #USNews #PoliticsNews
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US Senator Bernie Sanders delivered a fiery speech ahead of the midterm elections, launching sharp attacks on Donald Trump, Elon Musk, billionaires, and what he called America’s growing “oligarchy.” Sanders warned that the United States is facing an “unprecedentedly dangerous moment,” accusing wealthy elites of increasing inequality while threatening democracy. Declaring that “we are going to defeat authoritarianism,” Sanders urged Americans to unite and fight back. He also criticized Trump-era tax cuts, warned about AI replacing workers, and demanded stronger action on healthcare, wages, housing, and economic justice.
#BernieSanders #TrumpVsSanders #ElonMusk #USPolitics #SandersSpeech #TrumpNews #BernieSandersSpeech #AmericanOligarchy #USMidterms #BreakingNews #EconomicJustice #TaxCuts #AIJobsCrisis #HealthcareReform #FightAuthoritarianism #USNews #PoliticsNews
~HT.178~PR.460~GR.538~ED.103~VG.HM~
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NewsTranscript
00:00And let me begin by saying this is not about Bernie, it's not even about Troy
00:06or Graham, it is about every person in this room.
00:14Of course I can't do what has to be done, Graham can't do it, Troy can't do it. The
00:21only way we're going to bring about the changes that this country needs is when
00:28all of us stand together and fight back.
00:40And before I begin let me thank Chris Ross for the music,
00:47Brownie Carson for his service to our country and his wonderful words,
00:56Erin Oberson with the nurses who do some of the most important work in this country.
01:08And let me thank Troy and Graham for their remarks and again thank all of you for coming out
01:15this evening to make sure that Graham Plattner is the next United States Senator from Maine.
01:28And Troy Jackson is your next governor.
01:37As it happens this is I think the 40th fight oligarchy event that we have done.
01:49We have held events from California to Maine, from Michigan down to Texas and a whole lot of states
01:58in between. And at these rallies we have had up to now many hundreds of thousands of people collectively
02:13coming out. They are progressives, they are Democrats, they are independents, they are Republicans.
02:20And I am happy to report to you, having been all over this country, that the American people are united.
02:35We are standing in opposition to oligarchy.
02:45We are going to defeat authoritarianism.
02:57We will not accept the unprecedented level of kleptocracy and corruption in the White House.
03:12We are rejecting the vicious attacks against the working class of this country.
03:25And we sure as hell do not want U.S. support for endless and horrible wars in Gaza, Iran,
03:33Lebanon, and any place else.
03:53Whether you are a conservative Republican or a progressive, you understand
04:01that it is absurd to spend billions of dollars killing people, innocent people abroad.
04:07Let's invest and rebuild America.
04:20Now what I want to do this evening is kind of do what
04:24most members of Congress do not do, and that is tell you the truth.
04:31And there is, when we talk about the truth, there is a lot of very bad and frightening news,
04:39but there's also some very good news, and I want to go over both.
04:44The bad news, and it's important that we understand it, because you're not going to see this
04:49in corporate media. You're not going to see it when you turn on the TV tonight.
04:53You're not going to hear it in the halls of Congress.
04:55The bad news is that never before in American history, never, have so few people held so much wealth,
05:05and even more importantly, so much power.
05:14And it's important to know, you know, when we were in school, we learned about the Gilded Age.
05:19Remember that? Rockefellers, and Carnegie's, and the Astors, the robber barons.
05:24You know, we learned about it. These guys were incredibly wealthy and incredibly powerful.
05:31Nothing compared to what exists today. Today in America, and again, you don't see this on TV.
05:38Corporate media doesn't talk about it. Today in America, the top one percent now owns more wealth
05:46than the bottom 93 percent. Even more insane, the richest guy in the world, Mr. Musk,
06:04now owns one man, now owns more wealth than the bottom 53 percent of American households.
06:14You got that? I want you to know. I would say important to understand the insanity and the
06:24the brokenness of this current economy when one person, who's, by the way, going to get even richer,
06:30I think, in the next couple of weeks or months, owns more wealth than the bottom 53 percent of American
06:36households. And, and we have now CEOs, you know, as always, if you're a worker, you always know the guy
06:43on top makes more money than the worker does. Nothing new about that. But right now, in an unprecedented
06:48way, you have CEOs making 350 times what the average employer, employee earns.
07:00And the gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is growing wider.
07:08Last year alone, after receiving the largest tax break in history from Mr. Trump,
07:16938 billionaires became 1.5 trillion dollars richer.
07:28And it's important to understand that as bad as the situation is now, it has been going on for decades.
07:35According to the Rand Corporation, not exactly a socialist operation,
07:42over the last 50 years, there has been a 79 trillion dollar redistribution of wealth from the bottom 90 percent
07:55to the top 1 percent.
08:02But it's not just income and wealth inequality. I want to, it's not just the fact that so few have
08:10so much wealth and so many people have so little. We have never had more concentration of ownership
08:17than exists today. Today, a handful of giant corporations dominate sector after sector of our economy,
08:27whether it's agriculture, transportation, energy, financial services, artificial intelligence,
08:33governments, you name it. And as a result of that concentration of ownership and monopolistic practices,
08:40we pay far higher prices than we should. And importantly, when we talk about concentration
08:49of ownership, we have got to focus on the media. Now, why is media so important? It's not what Trump
09:00calls
09:00fake news. A reporter writes a bad story about him and he gets all upset about it. It's more importantly,
09:08these are the folks who determine what the issues are that we are thinking about, what we consider to be
09:16important or unimportant,
09:20what we focus on or what we don't focus on. It is not an accident today that in America, six
09:27large media conglomerates
09:29control about 90 percent of what the American people see, hear and read. As I think many of you know,
09:37I want you to think about this for a moment. Why is it? Richest guy on earth, Mr. Musk owns
09:44Twitter,
09:44now called X. Why is that? Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest guys, owns the Washington Post and Twitch.
09:52Mark Zuckerberg, one of the handful of wealthiest people, owns Meta, which includes Facebook, Instagram,
09:59WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads, Rupert Murdoch, owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, Larry Ellison, owns
10:11CBS, TikTok,
10:15Paramount Pictures, Skydance, MTV, and is on his way to acquiring CNN and Warner Brothers.
10:26The point is, their media helps us to determine what we are going to be discussing, what we talk about,
10:35what we don't talk about, what we focus on, what we don't focus on. But when you look at the
10:41economy
10:41and the world we're living in today, it is not just massive income and wealth inequality, it's not just
10:47concentration of ownership and the media, it is also something even more important. And that is,
10:53as a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision,
11:02billionaires are now legally able to spend as much as they want through their so-called super PACs.
11:13And by the way, unless I am very mistaken, you're going to see a lot of super PAC money coming
11:20in to
11:21this state against Graham. And what I want to tell, I want people to know that when you see these
11:30ads on
11:32TV, you know, Citizens for This or Citizens for That, always ask yourself one simple question.
11:39Who is funding those ads? And what do they want? And why do they want to defeat people like Graham?
11:58And as a result of all of this super PAC money, you know, people don't know this. Musk himself
12:05spent over 270 million dollars to elect Donald Trump as president.
12:16And what we're seeing right now, in this midterm election, are super PACs from crypto,
12:24the crypto industry, from AI, from APAC, and from other special interests, pouring
12:30hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure that their candidates get elected and
12:37those candidates that stand for the working class of this country get defeated. We are going to take them
12:43on.
12:57You know, I've got to tell you,
13:04you know, I've got to tell you that coming from a small rural state, your sister state, Vermont,
13:16that I really love democracy. I really do. And I'll tell you why. You know, I've been running many
13:21races. I think it's fantastic that people get up and say, I want to run for office. I don't give
13:28a
13:40chance to run for office. That is a fantastic system. But brothers and sisters, it's not only Trump
13:47that is trying to undermine American democracy. It is all of these billionaires and their super PACs
13:53who want to own and control the United States Congress. We cannot allow that to happen.
14:12So, bad news is, the bad news is that the very wealthiest people in this country are becoming much, much
14:22wealthier. But there's another economic reality today as well. And that while the rich become richer,
14:30the vast majority of the American people, middle class, the working class, low income people,
14:36are going nowhere in a hurry. Despite, I want you to hear this because it's not talked about very often,
14:44despite an explosion in technology and a huge increase in worker productivity over the last many
14:52decades, the average American worker is making less today than he or she did over 53 years ago
15:02after adjusting for inflation.
15:0940 or 50 years ago, it was not uncommon that a working class family, and I grew up in a
15:15working
15:15class family. And during those days, and I say this to the young people, it was possible for a working
15:23class family to have one person in the family. In those days, usually the father, working 40 hours a
15:31week and earning enough money to pay the bills. How old fashioned and quaint that seems today.
15:40How many working class families do you know where one worker can pay the bills? Not many, not many.
15:48So the question that we have got to ask ourselves is what the hell is going on?
15:55You've got more technology, more automation, more worker productivity,
16:00and working class people are struggling today in a way that we have not seen for a very long time.
16:08Today, while the very rich get richer, over 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
16:18Got it? All right, I grew up in a family, lived paycheck to paycheck. Many of you are living paycheck
16:26to paycheck.
16:29What does it mean? It means that every day people are living under the extraordinary stress of figuring
16:39out how they're going to survive, how they're going to feed their kids, how they're going to pay the rent.
16:42Car breaks down, how are you going to fix the car? Your mom gets sick, how are you going to
16:46help get a
16:46prescription drug? Every day, people all over this country are dealing with that stress.
16:55And one of the reasons that in America, which in general has a lower life expectancy
17:03than other wealthy countries, we're about three years, four years lower, for working class people,
17:09they are living six or seven years shorter lives than the wealthy. And you know why? What's the word?
17:16That's the word.
17:19Struggle for survival, putting food on the table, worrying about how you survive eats you up physically,
17:26it eats you up mentally. And this has all taken place in the richest country in the history of the
17:32world.
17:37And let us take a look in the richest country on earth as to how we treat our children. You
17:43know,
17:43I hear politicians in Washington, they stand in front of the flag, oh, we love America. Well,
17:49if you love America, you love the children in America, because the children, of course, are the future
18:08of our countries. How do we treat the children? I don't mean to be facetious when I say this,
18:13is the good news is that of the 36 countries that the United Nations examined in terms of childhood poverty,
18:23the United States was not last. We were 35th. We were ahead of Uruguay.
18:32Can you believe that in the richest country in the world, where the people on top have never had it
18:38so
18:39good? We rank 35th out of 36 major countries in terms of childhood poverty. But it's not just
18:47childhood poverty. Every psychologist in the world will tell you that the years zero through four
18:55are the most important for intellectual and emotional growth for a human being, right?
19:03Well, then by definition, if we're seeing working class families all over the country, mom has to
19:10work, dad has to work, then obviously we have a great child care system, right? Wrong. Child care system
19:19is broken, it's dysfunctional, it is unaffordable, and the workers who work with the kids are paid
19:26abysmal wages. Right now in America, our K-12 schools are struggling, and higher education is
19:36unaffordable. It is not a radical idea to say that if a young person wants to go to college,
19:43that that person should not have to go bankrupt or deeply in debt in order to afford a higher education.
20:11But it's not just, again, as a wealthy nation, how are we treating our children abysmally? What about
20:19senior citizens in America? Well, in America today, roughly one in three older Americans
20:28are economically insecure, with incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level. In America today,
20:38over 20% of seniors are trying to survive on $15,000 or less.
20:50And according to the National Council on Aging, older Americans living in poverty die nearly nine
20:57years earlier than their wealthier peers.
21:04So what you have is a nation, people on top, never ever had it so good. I mean, Mr. Bezos
21:12owns 14 homes,
21:14he has a $50 million wedding. These guys have jewelry worth millions of dollars. And yet,
21:21our elderly people are trying to survive from $15,000, $20,000 a year near the highest rate of childhood
21:27poverty.
21:2860% of our people live in paycheck to paycheck. That's where we are in the economy right now.
21:34And let me tell you something, and I want everybody to pay attention to this, because we don't,
21:39are not focusing on it enough. Artificial intelligence and robotics are going to be the most
21:50transformative economic revolution in the history of this country, in the history of the world.
21:56Far more significant and fast-moving than the industrial revolution, which took people off the farms
22:02into factories. And far more significant than the movement that took people off of factories into offices.
22:10We are looking at a revolution being led by the same people who have the wealth and the power now.
22:21Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos, Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Ellison, and others. They are investing many hundreds of billions of dollars
22:32into the development and implementation of AI and robotics. And in one sentence,
22:39what is the function of AI and robotics? It is to replace human labor.
22:49Jeff Bezos, Jeff Bezos is now securing $100 billion, a fund of $100 billion to automate factories.
23:00Do you know what that means? It means that all over our country,
23:06robots will be replacing human beings in the manufacturing sector.
23:15We're looking at a growth in driverless vehicles, which means that truck drivers and cab drivers,
23:25Uber drivers, Lyft drivers, etc., will be losing their jobs in the not too immediate future.
23:33So what we have got to do is, in my view, in terms of AI, we've got to say, wait
23:40a second.
23:42All right? Let's slow it up a bit here.
23:51And let us make sure. It's not that AI is a bad thing unto itself. There are positive things it
23:57can do.
23:59But what we have got to do is make sure that AI and robotics work for all of the people,
24:07not just the billionaires who are developing that technology.
24:25If AI and robotics, for example, can significantly reduce the work week in America,
24:37and yet make sure that workers receive better income than they do today, that's a good thing.
24:47But if AI and robotics throws workers out on the street with no recourse, that is not acceptable.
24:54If AI undermines our democracy by putting stuff on screens in which you cannot tell truth from fiction,
25:06that's a bad thing.
25:16If AI bots, if kids in America develop an emotional relationship with AI bots,
25:28I want you to think what that means.
25:31It means that we are losing already in this country among the young people.
25:35We have a mental health crisis. Kids are lonelier and lonelier.
25:38I do not want the next generation to have as their friends AI bots.
25:45I want them to have other kids, other human beings as their friends.
25:58So this is a major, major struggle. These guys are in it for the money.
26:03They want more wealth and more power, and they do not care what happens to workers.
26:07Guy who runs Meta, Zuckerberg, laid off 10% of his own workforce last week.
26:13What the hell do you think it's going to do to other people's workforce?
26:16All right, so it's an issue we've got to get our handles on.
26:19Now I've given you some bad news, and it is, it is bad news.
26:24We're living in an unprecedentedly dangerous moment in American history,
26:29run by a man who is a pathological liar, a narcissist,
26:38who is a kleptocrat, you know, who does not believe in our constitution or the rule of law.
26:46But the point is, anyone who goes to you and says,
26:49oh, the only problem is Trump, they're not telling you the truth.
26:52It is Trump, but it goes deeper than Trump.
26:55All right, we've got to change the system.
27:02I've given you some bad news now, let me, it is my joy to give you some good news.
27:11And that is, in the past number of years, dozens of progressives, strong progressives,
27:18progressives standing up, fighting for the working class, fighting up, fighting against climate change,
27:24fighting against oligarchy. They have been winning elections, and right now we have over a hundred
27:29members of the Progressive Caucus in the United States House of Representatives.
27:41I want to give you another piece of political very good news, and I think it lays the groundwork for
27:47what we have got to do all over this country.
27:49Last year, a young man, his name was Zoran Mamdani.
28:05Zoran
28:09Zoran decided to run for mayor of New York City.
28:13And when he began the campaign, this is the big point that I want to make,
28:17I mean, Zoran is a very intelligent guy, he's a great communicator,
28:20very good on policy, and so forth and so on. But when he began his campaign,
28:25he was at one percent in the polls. Got it? And he was taking on, people said,
28:32Zoran, you're crazy. How are you going to run for mayor? You're taking on the Democratic
28:35establishment. You're taking on the Republican establishment. You're taking on the President
28:39of the United States. You're taking on the oligarchs in New York, who are very, very wealthy.
28:46How the hell are you going to win? But you know what he did?
28:48He went out and he developed a grassroots movement of 100,000 volunteers in New York City,
29:00who knocked on doors, did the political work, and Zoran defeated his opponents badly.
29:16So the lesson there, and New York, I understand that Maine is not New York City,
29:23a little bit different. But the lesson is the same. They have the money, we have the people.
29:36And if tens of thousands of people in the great state of Maine are out knocking on doors,
29:42and working for Graham, working for Troy, working for other great candidates, you know what?
29:46All the money in the world, all the lies in the world, will not defeat them.
30:03Here's some more good news. Out in the state of California,
30:09some of the trade unions decided that at a time when the billionaires in California are getting richer,
30:17while millions of men, women, and children are losing their health care because of Trump's disastrous
30:25policies, they decided to bring forth a ballot item calling for a tax, a wealth tax on billionaires.
30:44And of course, the billionaires there are going crazy, because according to the polling,
30:51the wealth tax has significant support.
31:01And for good reason, at a time when billionaires are paying an effective tax rate because of a rigged
31:10tax system lower than a truck driver or a nurse, we must demand that the one percent and large
31:18profitable corporations start paying their fair share of taxes.
31:43And I want to tell you, and that is why I introduced recently legislation to establish a five percent
31:53annual wealth tax on the nine hundred and thirty-eight billionaires in America,
31:59who collectively are worth more than eight trillion dollars.
32:09And I want to, just to give you an example of how insane the level of inequality is in America,
32:18I want to tell you what this legislation would accomplish.
32:21This is a five percent tax on fewer than one thousand billionaires on their wealth.
32:30This is what it would do.
32:31If this legislation were to pass in its first year, it would provide every man,
32:37woman, and child in a household less than 150,000, that's the vast majority of households,
32:44with a $3,000 direct payment.
32:48Got it? Family of four, family of four, 12,000 bucks.
32:54This legislation and the money it would bring in would tackle the housing crisis
33:01by being able to have the resources to build seven million units of low-income and affordable housing.
33:18This tax on billionaires would expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing.
33:32It would guarantee universal affordable child care.
33:44It would strengthen public education by ensuring that no teacher in America earns less than $60,000 a year.
34:03It would end the crisis we now experience in home health care,
34:09so that seniors and people with disabilities could live with dignity in their own homes.
34:18And it would restore health care to the 15 million Americans
34:23who are losing it because of Trump's quote-unquote big, beautiful bill.
34:35We could, we can do all of that and more by a five percent annual tax on the wealth of
34:43billionaires.
34:45Now, my opponents, of which there are many, claim that this legislation is punitive and confiscated.
34:54Oh, we're just picking on these poor billionaires.
34:56I mean, my God!
34:58How cruel can you be?
35:01But I want you to hear this.
35:02This just shows you how crazy the economy is today.
35:05If that bill were in effect this year, Elon Musk would pay $39 billion more in taxes.
35:14Here's the punchline.
35:16This confiscatory, terrible, drastic, radical piece of legislation would leave Musk with just $737 billion left to survive.
35:28Now, I know you're worried about him, but what do you think?
35:31Think he can make it on $737 billion?
35:34Yeah, maybe.
35:36You know, Jeff Bezos would owe about $14 billion more in taxes,
35:45but he would still have $265 billion to put a roof over his home.
35:53All right, to hear the point about that is just to show you that a five percent tax on wealth
36:01on less than a thousand Americans, the richest people in this country,
36:06could transform our country and improve life for hundreds of millions of Americans.
36:22And I think both Graham and Troy in their remarks made a very important point,
36:27and that is the big money interests, the people who control this country,
36:32want you to believe that you are powerless. They want you to think small. They want you to believe
36:37in austerity. Just, we can't do anything. I just came back from Italy. I was in Italy last week.
36:43Italy is a lot poorer country than in America. And you know what? When you go to a hospital in
36:49Italy,
36:50you know what the bill is?
36:52A few miles north of us here in Maine or in Vermont is Canada. You spend two months in the
37:00hospital
37:01in Canada. You know what the bill is?
37:03Europe. Yeah. And all of these countries, virtually every major country on earth,
37:08provides health care to every man, woman, and child as a human, right?
37:36And here is the kick-up. Here is what is so crazy. They provide health care to all
37:43of their people at 50% of the cost per capita. The function of the American health care system
37:53is not to provide quality care to all in a cost-effective way. As you all know,
38:00the function of the American health care system is to make billions for the insurance companies
38:06and the drug companies. And that is why, that is why, when candidates come around and they tell,
38:14oh, we're so concerned about health care, you know, we want to do this, we want to do that,
38:17ask them one simple question. Do they have the guts to take on the insurance companies and the drug
38:23companies and fight for a Medicare for all single-pay-up system?
38:49In the richest country on earth, so many of our seniors should not be struggling to afford
38:56health care or prescription drugs or housing. We can expand Medicare, we can expand Social Security,
39:04and bring back traditional pension plans so that every senior in this country can retire with dignity.
39:22In America, no worker should be working 40 hours a week and living in poverty. We can and should raise
39:31the minimum wage to a living wage. And guarantee that every worker who wants to join a union will be
39:45able
39:45to do so without illegal action on the part of their employer.
40:00And instead of spending a trillion and a half dollars on the military for more and more endless wars,
40:08we can cut military spending, housing, and the needs of the American people.
40:22So our job is not just to take Trump on every single day, which we must, and progressives are leading
40:31that fight.
40:31Our job is to bring forth an agenda and a plan for implementation that speaks to the needs of the
40:40working class of this country.
40:51The time is long gone for establishment politics and nibbling around the edges of policy.
41:00We need bold action now, which transforms this country so that all of our people can live with dignity and
41:16respect.
41:18What we're talking about is not radical. What is radical is when so few have so much.
41:35What is radical is when billionaires control our political system.
41:41It is not radical to say that we should not have the highest rate of childhood poverty,
41:47of almost any nation, and that so many of our seniors should live in economic despair.
41:55So brothers and sisters, this is a pivotal moment in the history of our country and the way America goes,
42:02so goes the world.
42:04And now is the time to think big, not small. Don't let them tell you that we cannot accomplish these
42:12goals.
42:12Nothing that I'm telling you tonight is radical. It's achievable. It can be done.
42:17And it will be done when we stand together and not let Trump and his friends divide us up based
42:25on the color of our skin or where we were born or the language that we speak.
42:52That is the playbook of the demagogues. You all know that. Not just Trump. Demagogues throughout history divide people up.
43:01Our job is to bring people together and to tell the billionaires of this country we're coming after them.
43:10And we're going to create an economy and a government that works for all, not just the 1%. Thank you
43:16all very much.
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