Bernie Sanders Storms CNN and Destroys Their Pro-Republican Talking Points

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I) VERMONT: Look, Chris, this country faces enormous problems. Our middle class is disappearing. We have more people living in poverty almost at any other time in the history of this country, and massive wealth and income inequality. And what we’ve seen over the last six years is Republicans doing hundreds and hundreds of filibusters. We passed legislation. We got a majority vote to raise the minimum wage, to do pay equity, to do a jobs program. Republicans filibustered, filibustered, and filibustered.

I think what the president is finally saying, look, immigration is a serious problem. We have got to do something. And if you guys don’t do it — remember, the Senate last year passed a reasonably good bill. What has the House done? Absolutely nothing. So what the president is saying, this country has problems. I’m going to go forward. If you pass legislation, I’ll rescind the executive order. But do something, address problems.

CAMEROTA: Even if it means that by acting unilaterally he threatens the relationship for any possible compromise. If election meant that there was a new beginning that now they will once again be at loggerheads, there could be a government shutdown, and all the other ripple effect.

SANDERS: Threaten, compromise. Is that what you said?

CAMEROTA: Well —

SANDERS: For six years we are trying to get the Republicans to support anything. Look, the Republicans — I have to say I’m an independent. I’m not particularly partisan. But any objective observer understands they have become a right wing party, not a center-right party. They have a right wing base. They have an agenda can which does not want to work with the president.

And I think what the president is saying, look, we’ve got problems. We have got to move. To say that we’re going to break the wonderful harmony and working relationship that we’ve had six years, that did not exist.

CAMEROTA: It’s not that. It’s that they are threatening shutdown, that they won’t work with Democrats and the president if he were to do this.

SANDERS: Then the American people have to make a choice. If they think the government shutdown is a response to the enormous problems facing this country. Look, the American people in poll after poll and on Election Day said we could raise the minimum wage. Do you hear Republicans talking about that? The American people in poll after poll say women should get paid the same amount of money as men. Do you hear the Republicans talking about that? The American are disgusted with Citizens United.

CUOMO: They heard something, though, senator, because they just voted in the Republicans in a very big way. And I think there’s a political calculation here to be made. You’re certainly right about that. But there are a lot of lives in the balance.

What I don’t understand here is there’s an absence of leadership by the party and president. And by the party I mean the Democratic Party, because you can’t play the same game the Republicans are. You don’t have the leverage. So you’re dealing with need of these families being separated. Everybody should be able to agree that’s horrible. How does the party that you caucus with and leader of the country find a way to make that salable, which should not be so difficult?

SANDERS: Chris, I agree with you. It should not be so difficult. I think the vast majority of people in this country want immigration reform. We passed it in the Senate. We have kids who are born in this country that are going to see a situation if we don’t act that their parents may be expelled.

CUOMO: It’s happened before. Presidents Bush and Reagan both did this. But here’s the difference. The difference was that the Congress had been massaged in those two situations in the direction of the ultimate reform, so that when the president signed these executive orders stopping the families from being separated, Congress undid it quickly. They were moving that way. That leadership, that compromise has not been found here.

SANDERS: I don’t think it’s leadership and I don’t think it’s compromise. The Republican Party is today a very different party than it was back then. That’s just the simple reality. And you pay attention to this every day. Have you heard Republicans talking in a serious way about immigration reform? They have not.