Transcript of Bernie Sanders Comments About "Democratic Establishment" on MTP [View all]

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Do you want to know what Bernie said to Chuck Todd on Meet the Press yesterday?

Here is the transcript:

CHUCK TODD: Well, I think another way of looking at it is you have to win, right? And you have to -- I think one of the cases you need to make to the Democrats is when -- you know, the former head of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania, and I gather that Joe Biden has a lot of support in Pennsylvania. But here's what he said about you. He said this. "I'm supremely confident Bernie Sanders could not win Pennsylvania. When Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren open their mouths, many, many Democrats in Pennsylvania stick their fingers in their ears." Tell us how you win Pennsylvania.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Look, you know, let me just say this to Ed, who I've known for many years, and to the entire Democratic establishment. Let me tell this to Ed, that there are millions of people who are sick and tired of that Democratic establishment. What Ed should know is that a recent poll that came out had me, if I'm not mistaken, eight points ahead of Trump in Pennsylvania. We've had polls which have me way ahead of him in Michigan and Wisconsin and, in fact, all over this country. Now, the reason that we can beat, that my campaign can beat Donald Trump is we're going to create the kind of excitement that we need to bring out the large voter turnout. We're going to bring out young people, who not only are interested and are going to fight for real climate change, they want to raise that minimum wage to $15 an hour, a fight that I have been helping to lead. They want healthcare for all through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program. They understand that it is absurd that young people should be leaving college 50,000, 60,000, 100,000 dollars in debt. They want public colleges and universities tuition-free. They want criminal justice reform. They want immigration reform. And the truth is that our campaign, I think, can generate that excitement. Our generation can talk to some, some of the Trump supporters, who now know that they were lied to, when Trump said he was going to provide healthcare to everybody and then tried to throw 32 million people off their healthcare. I think we are the campaign that can beat Donald Trump.

CHUCK TODD: Senator, I would argue, you made a very similar case against Hillary Clinton four years ago. And you came up short. Why do you think, this time -- especially when it seems like you have an exhaustive -- I'm just saying, you have, you have a part of the Democratic Party -- that seems to be gravitating toward Biden. Go ahead.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: You know, we came up short. Yeah, we took on the entire Democratic establishment. We took on the Democratic National Committee. We took on every Democratic governor. We took on every Democratic mayor. And we ended up winning 22 states and 13 million votes and, in fact, bringing forth an agenda that transformed the Democratic Party. Four years ago, people were not talking about the issues they're talking about now. So I understand that our campaign is unique in the sense that we're going to try to win the Democratic primary. We're going to try to beat the -- Trump. But you know what else we're going to try to do? We're going to try to transform the United States of America, deal with this massive level of income and wealth inequality, deal with Wall Street, deal with the greed of the drug companies and the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry. So our campaign has a different goal. It's to transform this country. And we're taking on the entire establishment, when we do that, including Ed Rendell.