Although many Americans have cooled down and are no longer feeling the “bern” this election cycle, Bernie Sanders continues to tour the liberal late-night circuit to make the case for his Presidential bid. The latest stop on the campaign trail was Thursday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! where Kimmel fawned over Sanders with agreement and softballs.
Inevitably, the conversation took off over Wednesday’s Mueller hearings. Shortly after Sanders made his sanctimonious remarks regarding how Russia interfered in our election and it should be a bipartisan effort to prevent it from occurring again, Kimmel responded with a stab at Republicans. “That seems very obvious and it seems like something that would be embraced by both parties, but it can't even get a vote in the Senate. The Republicans have stopped it twice today.”
Moving on to the next hot topic, Kimmel pinpointed the issue of climate change by making it clear he agreed with Sanders; “It does seem so crazy that, you know, we have a list of things to worry about, but if the climate on this planet-it makes it uninhabitable for other human beings- none of the stuff on the list matters.”
What followed was a typical Sanders’ remark lamenting the dire threat climate change poses to us all:
You're right. I mean you're right and as you know what the scientists are telling us, we have less than 12 years to act boldly in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy or else there will be irreparable damage done to this country and the rest of the world….
The interview then took a turn to socialized healthcare which Sanders kicked off by applauding Kimmel for his support:
You got the top one percent owning more wealth than the bottom 92 percent and yet we are the only major country not to guarantee health care and, by the way, thank you very much for the work you've done in making sure health care is successful.
After being lauded for using his show to support a liberal agenda, Kimmel posited, “Well, it’s — again, it seems obvious that we should make sure people have health care coverage.”
To give credit where credit is due, Kimmel gave some semblance of pushback to the idea of stripping millions of American citizens of their private health insurance, but only after praising guaranteed healthcare more:
Yeah and it is an issue that most of the citizens of this country agree on and when they are not being bamboozled, then they think about it. They think about their neighbors and their family members, they say “yeah I do want to have coverage for my children until they're 26 years old.” Your propose and correct me if I have any of this wrong, Medicare for all, something that makes you different from your fellow candidates, you want to get rid of — do away with private insurance all together.
Despite weeks of complaints coming from the Sanders campaign regarding poor media coverage, no evidence of that was on display during his interview with Kimmel. In fact, it seemed to be the opposite.
Transcript below:
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live
7/25/19
11:54 p.m. EasternJIMMY KIMMEL: I wonder if you looked at any of that and wished that you had been there in that spot, because you really, I feel like you would have sold that report. You know, it's one thing to write it. It's another thing to perform it.
BERNIE SANDERS: I think the bottom line is, the message from Mueller is that the Russians intervened in the campaign in 2016. They are still intervening and we've got to stop that. Whatever your political view is, you want to make sure that the election in the United States is controlled by the people of this country, not the Russians or anybody else.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
JIMMY KIMMEL: That seems very obvious and it seems like something that would be embraced by both parties, but it can't even get a vote in the Senate. The Republicans have —
SANDERS: We’ve got an incredibly —
KIMMEL: — stopped it twice today.
SANDERS: — that’s right. We have an incredibly do-nothing senate which seems to be doing all to worry about the wealthy and the powerful.
(....)
11:55 p.m. Eastern
KIMMEL: Can't we just outspend the fossil fuel people if it's a money issue? I mean can't —
SANDERS: You can’t. Because they —
KIMMEL: — you can't?
SANDERS: Look, it’s — the fossil fuel industry makes tens of billions of dollars a year. You’ve got people like the Koch Brother who have already contributed hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to the political process, but it's not just them. You've got Wall Street putting in huge amounts of money into the political process. You got the drug companies who charge us the highest prices in the world. You got the insurance companies, you got the military industrial complex and in fact, you know, Jimmy, what our campaign is about really is saying that we need a political revolution in this country where instead of having the government run by these large multi-national corporations and the one percent, maybe just maybe we may want a government and an economy that works for all of us and not just them.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
KIMMEL: It does seem so crazy that, you know, we have a list of things to worry about, but if the climate on this planet, it makes it uninhabitable for other human beings, none of the stuff on the list matters.
SANDERS: You're right. I mean you're right and as you know what the scientists are telling us, we have less than 12 years to act boldly in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy or else there will be irreparable damage done to this country and the rest of the world and yet you got these people, the fossil fuel industry, who are much more concerned about their short term profits than the future of this planet.
KIMMEL: Which is nuts cause they have to live on this planet too.
SANDERS: It’s nuts. Their grandchildren are going to have to live on this planet. But at the end of the day, it is not just the fossil fuel industry. It is Wall Street whose greed has done irreparable harm to this country, it is all of these powerful special interests whose just greed is destroying the working class of this country. You know, we have a situation in America today where you got three people, we don't talk about this in Congress. We don't talk about it in the media. You got three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of the American people. You got the top one percent owning more wealth than the bottom 92 percent and yet we are the only major country not to guarantee health care and, by the way, thank you very much for the work you've done in making sure health care is successful.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
KIMMEL: Well, it’s — again, it seems obvious that we should make sure people have health care coverage.
SANDERS: It is obvious to you. It is obvious to me. It is obvious to most people. Yet we have then got to ask ourselves, why is that we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people? Why over 80 million people are uninsured or underinsured? Why one out of five Americans cannot afford the medicine that they need because the price of prescription drugs is so high? Why is that? Why is that? And the answer is, it gets back to the power and the greed of these major, multi-national corporations who could care less about working people. I know this is not an issue we talk about much, but it is an issue finally as a nation that we're going to have to deal with.
KIMMEL: Yeah and it is an issue that most of the citizens of this country agree on and when they are not being bamboozled, then they think about it. They think about their neighbors and their family members, they say “yeah I do want to have coverage for my children until they're 26 years old.” Your propose and correct me if I have any of this wrong, Medicare for all, something that makes you different from your fellow candidates, you want to get rid of — do away with private insurance all together.
SANDERS: That's right.
KIMMEL: Now, I worry that that twist makes it an impossible sell for most people.
SANDERS: No. I don’t think so. That’s exactly what the American people want. Polling suggests that.
