BREAKING NEWS: Bernie Sanders Issues Epic Takedown Of Trump, Musk, And 'The Greed Of The Oligarchy'

vermont thank you Mr president in the last couple of weeks I've had the opportunity uh to travel in many parts of our country uh and I have been able to talk to folks in Nebraska uh in Iowa Wisconsin Michigan Nevada Colorado and Arizona and what I am hearing from uh in all of these states and in fact all over the country is that our nation right now faces enormous crises unprecedented crises in the modern history of our country and how right now at this moment we respond to these crises will not only impact our lives

it will impact the lives of our kids and future generations and in terms of climate change the well-being of the entire planet and Mr president what I have to tell you is that the American people are angry at what is happening here in Washington DC and they are prepared to stand up and fight back in my view and what I have heard from many many people is that they will not accept an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires control our government where the wealthiest person on earth Mr musk is running all over

Washington DC slashing the Social Security Administration so that our elderly people today are finding it extremely difficult to access the benefits that they paid into where Mr musk and his friends are slashing the Veterans Administration so that people who put their lives on the line to defend us will not be able to get the health care that they are entitled to or get the benefits that they are owed in a timely manner slashing the Department of Education slashing USID and why is all of this slashing taking place it is taking place so that the wealthiest

people in this country can receive over $1 trillion dollar in tax breaks now I don't care if you are a Democrat a Republican or an independent there are very few people in this country who think that you slash programs that working families desperately need in order to give tax breaks to billionaires mr president I am the former chair of the US Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs and I have had the honor of meeting with veterans in my own state of Vermont all over Vermont but all over the country these are the men and women who

put the uniform of this country on and have been prepared to die to defend our nation and American democracy and these veterans and Americans all over our nation will not accept an authoritarian form of society with a president who undermines our constitution every day every day there's something else out there where he's undermining our constitution and threatening the very foundations of American democracy that is not what people fought and died to allow to happen mr president I am not a historian but I do know that the founding fathers of this country were no dummies they

were really smart guys and in the 1780s they wrote a constitution and established a form of government with a separation of powers a separation of powers with an executive branch the president a legislative branch the Congress and a judicial branch these revolutionaries in the 1780s had just fought a war against the imperial rule of the king of England who was an absolute dictator the most powerful person on earth and these revolutionaries here in America forming a new government wanted to make absolutely sure that no one person in this brand new country that they were forming

would have unlimited powers and that is why we have a separation of powers that is why we have a judiciary a Congress and an executive branch in other words way back in the 1780s they wrote a constitution to prevent exactly what Donald Trump is trying to do today so let us be clear about what is going on donald Trump is attacking our First Amendment and is trying to intimidate the media and those who speak out against them in an absolutely unprecedented way mr president he has sued ABC CBS Meta the De Moines Register his FCC

is now threatening to investigate NPR and PBS he has called CNN and MSNBC illegal in other words the leader or the so-called leader of the free world is afraid of freedom he doesn't like criticism well guess what none of us like criticism but you don't get elected to the Senate you don't get elected to the House you don't become a governor you don't become a president of the United States unless you are prepared to deal with that criticism and the response to that criticism in a democracy is not to sue the media is not to

intimidate the media it's to respond in the way you think best but Mr president it is not just the media that Trump is going after he is going after the constitutional responsibilities that this body the United States Congress has and I will say it amazes me it really does how easily my Republican colleagues here in the Senate and in the House are willing to surrender their constitutional responsibilities give it over to the president trump has illegally and unconstitutionally withheld funds that Congress has appropriated you can't do that congress has the power of the purse we

make a decision we argue about it here big debates voteras the whole thing make that decision that money goes out the president does not have the right to withhold funds that Congress has appropriated trump has illegally and unconstitutionally decimated agencies that can only be changed or reformed by Congress you don't like the Department of Education you don't like USID fine come to the Congress tell us what reforms you want to see you do not have the right to unilaterally do away with these agencies trump has fired members of independent agencies and inspectors general that he

does not have the authority to do but Mr president it is not just the media that he is trying to intimidate it is not just the powers of Congress that he wants now in an absolutely outrageous unconstitutional and extraordinarily dangerous way he is going after the judiciary his view is that if you don't like a decision that a judge renders you get rid of that judge you try to impeach that judge you intimidate judges so that you get the decisions that you want you know I'm thinking back now as someone who is not a supporter

of the Roberts court and I'm thinking about one of the worst Supreme Court decisions that has ever been rendered that is Citizens United i'll say more about that in a moment and I'm thinking about the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Ro v wade taking away American women's right to control their own bodies in my view these were outrageous decisions unpopular decisions but it never occurred to me cuz maybe I'm old-fashioned and conservative and I believe that you live by the rule of law to say "Hey look at the decision Roberts made we're going to impeach

him no we try to elect a new president who's going to appoint new Supreme Court justice that is the system that people have fought and died to defend but it's not just the movement toward oligarchy which is outraging millions of Americans Democrats and Republicans by the way and it's not just the movement toward authoritarianism that we are seeing the American people especially with Mr musk and 13 billionaires in the Trump administration running agency after agency the American people are saying as loudly as they can that they will not accept a society of massive economic and

wealth inequalities where the very richest people in our country are becoming much richer while working families are struggling to put food on the table having gone all over this country I can tell you that the American people are sick and tired of these inequalities and they want an economy that works for all of us not just the 1% you know Mr president we deal with a whole lot of stuff here in the Congress and you know virtually all of it is important in one way or another but let's do something you know fairly radical today

let's try to tell the truth the real truth about what is going on in our society today something that we don't talk about too much here in the Senate we don't talk about it too much in the House we don't talk about it too much in the corporate media but the reality is that today we have two Americas two very very different Americas and in one of those Americas the wealthiest people have never ever had it so good in the whole history of our country the people on top have never ever had it so good

as they have it today today we have more income and wealth inequality than there has ever been in the history of America now I know we don't discuss it you don't see it much on TV you don't hear it talked about here at all but the American people do not believe that it is appropriate that three people one two three Mr musk Mr bezos and Mr zuckerberg three Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society 170 million people really three people owe more wealth than 170 million people anybody here think that is

vaguely appropriate and by the way those very same three people three richest people in America were right there at Trump's inaugural standing right behind the president so you want to know what oligarchy is i know there's some confusion out there what is oligarchy well it starts off when you have the three wealthiest people in the country standing right behind the president when he gets inaugurated the top 1% in our country now own more wealth than the bottom 90% CEOs make 300 times more than their average worker and unbelievably real inflation accounted for wages today the

average American worker if you can believe it despite a massive increase in worker productivity is lower today than it was 52 years ago and during that period there was a $75 trillion transfer of wealth that went from the bottom 90% to the top 1% that is the reality of the American economy today and you know what maybe we might want to be talking about that and in our America today in that top America that one America the 1% are completely separate and isolated from the rest of the country you think they get on a subway

to get to work think they sit in a traffic jam for an hour trying to get to work not the case they fly around in the jets and the helicopters that they own they live in their mansions all over the world in their gated communities they have nannies taking care of their babies they don't worry about the cost of child care and they send their kids to the best private schools and colleges sometimes they vacation not in a motel six not in a national park but on the very own islands that they have and on

occasion for the very very richest just to have for a kick have a little bit of fun maybe they'll spend a few million dollars flying off into space in one of their own spaceships sounds like fun but it is not just income massive income and wealth inequality that we're dealing with today we have more concentration of ownership than ever before while the profits on Wall Street and corporate America saw a handful of giant corporations dominate sector after sector whether it's agriculture transportation media financial services etc etc small number of huge corporations international corporations dominating sector

after sector and as a result of that concentration of ownership they are able to charge the American people outrageously high prices for the goods and services we need mr president we don't talk about it too much maybe we should but there are three Wall Street firms Black Rockck Vanguard and State Street that combined are the major stockholders in 95% of our corporations got that three Wall Street firms three are the major stockholders in 95% of American corporations so Mr president that is one America people on top doing phenomenally well not only do they have economic

power they have enormous political power that's what's going on there they live like kings that's one America but there is another America and in that other America 60% 6% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck and millions of workers from one end of this country to the other are trying to survive on starvation wages and unlike Donald Trump I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck and I know the anxieties that my mom and dad have living in a rent control apartment can we afford to buy this why did you buy

that and that's the story taking place all over America what does living paycheck to paycheck mean it means that every single day millions of Americans worry about how they're going to pay their rent or their mortgage all over the country rents are skyrocketing and people are wondering what happens what happens to me and my kids if rent goes up by 20% and I can't afford it where do I live do I have to take my kid out of school where do I put my kid in worst case scenario do I live in my car let's

be clear there are many people who are working today who are living in the back of their cars how do I pay for child care talked to a cop a guy the other day a police officer spending $20,000 a year for child care how do I buy decent food for my kids when the price of groceries is off the charts what happens if I get sick or my kid gets sick or my mother gets sick and I got a $12,000 deductible and I can't afford to go to the doctor how at the end of the

month am I going to pay my credit card bill even though I am being charged 20 or 30% interest rates by the userous credit card companies people are worrying about simple things what happens if my car breaks down and the guy at the repair shop says it's going to cost $1,000 and I don't have $1,000 in the bank and if I don't have a car how do I get to work and if I don't get to work how do I have an income and if I don't have an income how do I take care of

my family those are the crises that millions of Americans are experiencing today but it's not just working age Americans today in our country half of older workers older workers have nothing in the bank as they face retirement and they're watching TV and they're saying "Miss the bus firing social security workers and actually worrying whether Social Security will be there for them." And it's not just older workers with nothing in the bank wondering what happens when they retire 22% of seniors are trying to survive on $15,000 a year i dare anybody in this country let alone

somebody who's old who needs healthcare needs to keep the house warm try to survive on $15,000 a year and there are people here by the way talking about cutting Social Security mr president it is not just about income and wealth inequality it is about a health care system which everyone in the nation understands is broken is dysfunctional and is outrageously expensive i hear my Republican friends you know I don't know where they are today wanting to destroy the ACA and my Democratic friends say "Oh we got to defend the ACA aca is broken." It doesn't

work my state the cost of healthcare is going up 10 15% in America today you got 85 million people uninsured or underinsured function of the health care system today is not to do what a sane society would do guarantee health care to all people in a costeffective way something which by the way every other major nation on earth manages to do the function of our health care system as everybody knows is to make billions of dollars in profits for the insurance companies and the drug companies so I say to my Democratic friends it's not good

enough to defend the Affordable Care Act it's a broken system you got to have the guts to stand up and allow us to do what every other m major nation does guarantee health care to all people as a human right not allow the drug companies and the insurance companies to make massive profits every year and Mr president I want to touch on an issue that gets virtually no discussion but I think it is enormously important and it says a hell of a lot about what's going on in our society today in America according to international

studies our life expectancy how long we live as a people is about four years lower than other countries most European countries live people there live longer lives japan they live even more longer lives than in Europe so question number one why is that happening we spend $14,000 a year per person on health care almost double what any other country spends and yet people around the world are living on average four years longer than we do but here is the really ugly fact even worse than that and that is that in this country on average if

you are a workingclass person you will live seven years shorter lives than if you're in the top 1% if you're a workingclass person your life will be seven years shorter than if you are wealthy in other words being poor or workingclass in America today amounts to a death sentence mr president it's not only a broken health care system we have got to ask ourselves a simple question and the Biden administration began a little bit of movement in this direction and that is why are we living in a nation where one out of four people can't

even afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribe why are we in some cases paying 10 times more than our neighbors in Canada or in Europe how does that happen and the answer of course has to do with the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and their power right here all of the campaign contributions that they make which has prevented us from negotiating prices but it's not just health care or prescription drugs when we look at what's going on in America in Vermont and throughout this country we have a major housing crisis here we are the richest

country on earth 800,000 people sleeping out on the streets and 20 million people are spending more than 50% of their limited incomes on housing can you imagine that you're a working person spending 50% of your income on housing how do you have money to do anything else and the cost of housing is soaring do not tell me Mr president that in a nation which could spend a trillion dollars on the military a nation that give massive tax breaks to the rich that we cannot build the millions of units of housing that we desperately need so

Mr president why is all of this happening why do we have a health care system is broken prescription drugs that are the most expensive in the world a housing system education in deep trouble talked to educators in Vermont all over the country talked to a principal the other day from Vermont they're starting salary at a public school $32,000 a year but don't worry they can't afford to even bring people in because they can't afford the housing in the community why have we let education sink to the level that it has so I think the bottom

line of all this is the American people I think are catching on and Mr musk I must thank him because he has made it very clear we are living in an oligarchic form of society if anybody out there thinks that Mr musk is running around out of the goodness of his heart trying to make our government more efficient you have not a clue as to what is going on what these guys want to do is destroy virtually every federal program that impacts the well-being of working people social security Medicare postal service public education you name

it so they can get huge tax breaks for the rich and eventually make government so inefficient that they will have the ability as large corporations to come in and privatize everything that is going on so Mr president this is a pivotal moment in American history and I sense that the American people have had it up to here they are prepared to fight back they do not want a government run by billionaires who have it all whose greed is uncontrollable you know we have in Vermont and I think a lot of this country serious problem with

addiction with drugs people drinking too much alcohol people smoking too many cigarettes but the worst form of addiction that this country now faces is the greed of the oligarchy you might think that if you had 1020 billion dollars it would be enough you know kind of enough to let your family live for the next 20 generations but it's not for whatever reason whatever compulsive reason they have these guys want more and more and more and they are prepared to destroy social security Medicare nutrition programs for hungry people in order to get even more that to

me is disgusting so Mr president we are at a pivotal moment in American history but having been all over this country or many parts of this country I am absolutely confident that the American people and I'm not just talking about Democrats who are as complicit in the problems that we have right now as our Republicans because we got a two-party system which is basically corrupt you got Mr musk over on the Republican side saying to any Republican who dares to stand up and defy the Trump agenda we are going to primary you and on the

Democratic side you got Apac and you got other super PACs saying you stand up for working people you're in trouble as well we got a corrupt campaign finance system in which billionaires are able to buy elections and that's why all over this country people are not happy with our two-party system the Republicans and the Democrats so Mr president this is a pivotal moment in American history but we have had difficult moments before and I am confident from the bottom of my heart that if we stand together and we do not allow some right-wing extremists to

divide us up by the color of our skin or our religion or where we were born or our sexual orientation if we stand together we can save this country we can defeat oligarchy we can defeat the movement toward authoritarianism and in fact we can create an economy and a government that works for all not just a few thank you very much Mr president