Sanders: Medicare for All, Green New Deal Are ‘Popular’ – Dems Need to Do Better ‘Speaking to Working Families’

On Wednesday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stated that Democrats didn’t do as well “as we should have in speaking to working families,” and “probably were not as strong as we should have been in explaining what a progressive economic agenda would mean to working families throughout the country.” Sanders also pushed back against the notion that Medicare for all, defunding the police, or the Green New Deal hurt Democrats by stating that Democrats didn’t talk about defunding the police and candidates who supported Medicare for all and the Green New Deal mostly won.

Sanders said, “I don’t think we did quite as good a job as we should have in speaking to working families, who today are in probably worse economic shape than any time since the Great Depression. And we did not make the case that we’re prepared to take on powerful special interests, we’re prepared to raise that minimum wage to at least 15 bucks an hour, provide equal pay for equal work, make it easier for workers to join unions, create millions of good-paying jobs, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, making public colleges and universities tuition-free, expanding health care to all people. So, I think we probably were not as strong as we should have been in explaining what a progressive economic agenda would mean to working families throughout the country.”

He later added, “I don’t know that there are any Democratic candidates who talked about defunding the police. … To the best of my knowledge, Judy, something like 100 candidates in Congress — 100 congressional candidates ran on Medicare for all. Do you know how many of them lost? Zero. I think one candidate who ran on the Green New Deal lost. And the reason for that is these proposals are popular proposals. So, the idea of blaming our ideas on their defeat, I’m not sure that that’s true. I think the converse may be true.”

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