Reporter:
Senator Sanders, if you’ve been paying any
attention to the frontrunner on the Republican
side, Ben Carson has --
Bernie Sanders:
I’ve heard the name. Yeah.
[laughter]
Reporter:
He’s been making a lot of questions about
potentially making up or embellishing stories
from his past. Did he ever actually do that
Bernie Sanders:
Yeah, I do. It’s not the reaction that you
would think, but it gets back to my concern
about the media coverage of campaigns. Obviously,
you know, how we live our lives and what happened
to us 30 or 40 or 50 years ago is interesting
and not unimportant.
But you know what’s more important to me
about Ben Carson and I think what’s more
important to the American people? Ben Carson,
as I understand it, wants to abolish Medicare.
How’s that? All right. So you’ve got millions
of old people whose entire healthcare existence
rests on Medicare. He wants to get rid of
it. That’s of some significance to me -- actually
more important than what may or may not have
happened 40 or 50 years ago.
Reporter:
So you don’t think --
Bernie Sanders:
Ben Carson does not, as I understand it, believe
in climate change, an issue of some significance
because the future of the planet depends upon
that. Ben Carson wants to give huge tax breaks
to the wealthiest people in this country.
So if I have the opportunity to run against
Dr. Carson, those are some of the issues that
I will be raising and I think we will win
that election hands down.
Now, I know the media is very concerned about
what happens to people’s lives 30, 40, 50
years ago. You can sort it out. I have no
brilliant insights into that. I just learned
about it the other day. But frankly for the
American people, what is more important is
to understand what his absurd views are on
the major issues facing our country.
And, you know, yesterday at the -- I don’t
know if you followed the Rachel Maddow discussion
we had, and in a joking way I was asked by
Rachel, you know, if I had my dream job, what
would it be? And I said, you know, president
of CNN or NBC. And you know why? Because I
think the media does not do a particularly
good job in allowing us to discuss the most
important issues facing the American people,
the issues that we were talking about here
this morning, the issues that Representative
Alexander and others are talking about, our
children living in poverty, kids who can’t
afford to go to school, people who have no
health insurance. Those are the issues that
I think we should be focusing on.
