HBO host Bill Maher said, “I want to help your campaign. I want to see you get the nomination” in an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) where Sanders argued that Americans are socialists “in certain respects” on Friday’s “Real Time.”
Maher, during his introduction of Sanders, after he ensured his audience would vote for Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton if she got the nomination said, “it’s like on the airlines. sometimes you don’t get the fish, you have the chicken. I’ll eat the chicken if I have to. So let me introduce a man who in my view is chicken, fish, and the kosher meal, Bernie Sanders is over here.”
He also stated to Sanders, “I want to help your campaign. I want to see you get the nomination.” Maher added, “I don’t think most Americans realize they’re already socialists.” Sanders responded, “In certain respects.”
Maher continued, “They [Republicans] like Social Security. That’s socialism. They like Medicare. They like the VA. They like the military. That’s — it’s already a socialist country.”
Sanders said, “no, it’s not a socialist country. [It’s] quasi, there are some socialist programs, but what we have got to do, is remind fellow Americans that every other major country on earth guarantees healthcare to all people, as a right, and they do it more cost-effectively than we do. We have got to inform the American people that we are the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee paid family and medical leave. We have got to remind the American people that there’s something a little bit crazy when in America we have more people in jail, disproportionately people of color, than any other major country on earth.”
Sanders also remarked, “we have to make the movement, if you like, to correlate what we’re talking about, because on every one of the major issues I am talking about, the American people agree.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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