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Bernie Sanders: 'Thanks To Donald Trump, We Now Know What Oligarchy Is About'
Forbes Breaking News
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5/5/2025
At a "Fighting Oligarchy" rally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) accused President Trump of leading an oligarchy in the U.S.
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00:00
...one-term member of Congress.
00:11
You know, for a number of years, in Vermont and around the country,
00:17
I talked a lot about our nation moving toward an oligarchic form of society.
00:23
And there were people who were saying,
00:25
What does oligarchy mean? What is Bernie talking about?
00:30
Well, thanks to Donald Trump, we now know what oligarchy is about.
00:43
When Donald Trump was elected president,
00:48
and I know it seems like a lot longer time ago, but it was only a hundred days,
00:53
when Trump was elected president,
00:57
he had behind him three of the wealthiest people in America.
01:05
You remember who those guys were?
01:07
You had Elon Musk.
01:10
You know Elon.
01:14
And he had Mr. Bezos next to him.
01:18
And he had Mr. Zuckerberg next to him.
01:23
Three wealthiest guys in America standing right behind the president.
01:29
But that wasn't enough.
01:31
Behind those guys, you had 13 other billionaires that Trump had nominated to become the heads of major federal agencies.
01:47
You know, right here in Pennsylvania, back in 1863,
01:57
at that terrible Battle of Gettysburg,
02:00
where 20,000 Union soldiers were either killed or wounded.
02:07
A few days later, as you all remember, President Abraham Lincoln came to the battlefield.
02:12
And he looked at that terrible battlefield where just a few days ago, so many people had died.
02:18
And he said in so many words,
02:20
what we believe in is a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
02:46
And what Trump has made,
02:50
perfectly clear, he doesn't hide it.
02:52
I gotta give the guy credit for that.
02:54
That right now, we have a government of the billionaire class,
02:59
by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class.
03:03
And we are not going to accept that.
03:09
You have an obscenity in the wealthiest guy in the world,
03:17
running all over Washington, D.C., firing thousands and thousands of dedicated federal employees.
03:27
At a time when the Social Security Administration doesn't have enough employees right now to service the seniors,
03:35
they want to throw away, they want to discharge thousands and thousands of people at the Social Security Administration.
03:44
At the time, at a time when the Veterans Administration is understaffed,
03:52
that they want to lay off 83,000 employees at the VA.
04:00
Well, I don't care if you are Republican, Democrat, or Independent.
04:08
We stand with the veterans of this country.
04:11
And we're not going to see a deterioration in their health care or in the benefits that they receive.
04:21
But it is not just oligarchy that we are dealing with today.
04:33
We are looking at an unprecedented attack on the foundations of American democracy,
04:40
and under Trump, a movement toward authoritarianism.
04:45
You know, the founding fathers of this country were nobody's dummies.
04:55
You all recall that they had fought and led the fight
05:00
against the autocratic king of England, the most powerful person on earth at that time.
05:07
A guy like Trump, who thought he had the divine right to rule.
05:16
And what these guys did, founding fathers, they said,
05:19
you know what, we see what the autocrat in England is doing,
05:24
and we're going to have a constitution which provides for separation of powers.
05:30
Right? You all remember that from history class?
05:39
So you got an executive branch, the president, a legislative branch,
05:43
Congress, Senate, and a House and a judiciary of federal courts.
05:48
And the reason we have that separation of powers is precisely to prevent what Trump is trying to do today.
06:00
He is usurping the powers, the appropriation powers of the United States Congress.
06:11
Unbelievably, unbelievably, when a court decision comes down that he doesn't like,
06:18
he says, we're going to impeach the judge.
06:20
But it's not only Congress and the judiciary he is going after.
06:29
Again, in an unprecedented way, he is going after the media.
06:36
Now, this is a guy who throughout his career has leveled the most savage, vicious attacks on his opponents.
06:44
Everybody is crazy. Everybody is awful. Everybody is disgusting. Everybody is terrible.
06:50
And yet, when the media criticizes him, he wants to sue them and shut them down.
07:00
So we say to Mr. Trump, if you can't accept criticism, get out of the political process.
07:09
That's what democracy is about.
07:24
And let me talk a little bit about something
07:30
that the media doesn't talk about and we don't talk about in Congress at all.
07:35
And that is the reality that today we have 60% of our people living paycheck to paycheck.
07:46
We have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of the country.
07:55
And as a result of this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision,
08:02
we now have a corrupt campaign finance system.
08:10
In which billionaires in both political parties are controlling the political and legislative agenda.
08:18
And I think this is an issue whether you're a Republican, progressive, conservative,
08:27
whatever you may be. Nobody thinks that American democracy is about
08:33
Elon Musk contributing $270 million to elect Trump and then becoming the most important person in government.
08:43
So brothers and sisters, when we talk about the future of America and our political system,
08:53
at the top of our agenda must be the need to end this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision.
09:02
And move to public funding of elections.
09:24
Now let me tell you something which you're not going to hear much about in the corporate media,
09:28
and you're not going to hear much about in the halls of Congress.
09:33
And that is that today, that is that today, the average American worker in real inflation accounted for dollars
09:47
is earning less than he or she did 50 years ago.
09:53
Now you know why the American people are angry?
09:59
They're angry because they're looking around them.
10:03
They're seeing a huge increase in worker productivity.
10:07
And yet all of that wealth is going to the people on top, not to the working class of this country.
10:14
And we are here tonight, we are here today, to say loudly and clearly that we demand an economy
10:26
that works for all of us, not just the people on top.
10:30
And by the way, we need a Democratic Party which makes a fundamental choice.
10:48
And that is, are you on the side of the working class of this country or not?
10:53
There are millions of working people whose families used to vote Democratic.
11:13
And they look and they say, why do we have
11:16
the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country?
11:21
Why is it that I'm working longer hours for lower wages?
11:24
Why is it that I can't afford health care?
11:27
Why is it that I can't afford my rent or my mortgage?
11:30
Why is it that I can't afford to send my kid to college?
11:34
And the Democratic Party is finally going to have to say,
11:38
we stand with those people.
11:40
We are prepared to take on the greed of corporate America.
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