During Friday’s ‘Fight Oligarchy’ event in McAllen, Texas, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke about billionaires' support of Trump.
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00:00And let me be more specific. You are now living in an oligarchic form of society.
00:11Some of you may have noticed when Trump was inaugurated, seems like 20 years ago, but it was just a few months ago,
00:21and standing right behind him were the three wealthiest people in America, Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos, Mr. Zuckerberg.
00:37You know those guys.
00:38And then seated right behind them were another 13 billionaires who Trump had nominated to head various major government agencies.
00:51So I don't have to tell you or the American people that today we have a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires.
01:12I don't have to tell you because Mr. Trump did already.
01:16Today in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of the United States of America.
01:33Now what I'm going to tell you doesn't get on TV too much and certainly not discussed in the halls or the floors of Congress.
01:42You got one man, our friend Mr. Musk, who owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of households in America.
01:55Do you hear that?
01:59One person owning more wealth than over half the households in America.
02:04You got in America today, top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 93% of Americans.
02:19You got CEOs in America now making 350 times what their average employees make.
02:29So bottom line, you got the people on top never in the history of this country have done better than they're doing it today.
02:43And it's not just income and wealth inequality.
02:46You got more concentration of ownership in America, in every sector of our society.
02:53Whether it's agriculture or transportation or financial services, you got a few giant multinational corporations who control what is produced.
03:04And more importantly, the high prices for the products that you pay.
03:12Bottom line is that in the wealthiest country in America, in the history of the world, we have two Americas.
03:21One America, people on top, doing phenomenally well.
03:27But there is another America that I suspect the people in McAllen are very familiar with.
03:32And that is that while the 1% is doing extraordinarily well, there are millions and millions of families in Vermont
03:49and here in Texas who are struggling to pay the rent, struggling to pay for health care, struggling to put food on the table, to pay for child care and other basic necessities of life.
04:10And again, I hope you hear this because you're not going to see it on TV very often.
04:21Today in America, 60, 6-0% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
04:30You all know what living paycheck to paycheck is about?
04:35Yeah, I'm afraid many of you do.
04:38I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck.
04:44And what that means is you've got people, mom, dad, working hard, sometimes 50, 60 hours a week,
04:52just trying desperately to bring in enough money to keep the family going.
05:01And people are worried.
05:02What happens if the rent goes up?
05:05What happens if the car breaks down?
05:08What happens if mother gets sick?
05:09And suddenly the whole thing could unravel because people have literally no money in the bank.
