Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders doesn’t completely believe the United States is a democracy, he told Theo Von on the “Chief Nerd” podcast Wednesday.
While reflecting on his own bids for the Democratic presidential ticket, Sanders was asked if he believes the election process in the U.S. “is still Democratic,” to which he replied, “Yes and no.”
“I mean, you want to run for office, can you? Yup, you can,” Sanders said. “You’ve got to have a certain number of signatures. But if you’re going to win, and I have 10 times more money than you do, I will beat you 95% of the time.”
“Maybe if you’re really an exceptional candidate and I’m a real idiot, you will beat me once in a while. But by and large, money people will win. So if you’re asking me, are we a democracy, in one sense, we are,” he continued. But money, he said, is the “real power.”
“I use the term oligarchy. And oligarchy is a society where small numbers of very wealthy people control the economic and political life of the country. I think we are moving rapidly in that direction,” Sanders added.
Elsewhere in the interview, Von asked Sanders about Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. After Von asked if Harris is “the best person” to run against GOP nominee Donald Trump, Sanders answered, “Well, she is the person.”
“She’ll be the Democratic candidate. She’s very smart,” Sanders continued. “You’ve got to give credit to somebody, a Black woman, to move up the ladder. That ain’t easy stuff. There’s a lot of resistance to that.”
Sanders also noted he was “interested” to learn “Trump apparently backed out of a debate with her on ABC.”
In July Trump appeared to back out of debating Harris on ABC on Sept. 10, a debate he’d previously planned to take part in against President Joe Biden. Harris then challenged Trump to reconsider.
On Thursday, Trump announced plans to debate Harris three times: on Fox Sept. 4, on ABC Sept. 10 and on NBC Sept. 25. The Harris campaign has thus far only committed to the Sept. 10 debate that was originally planned. While speaking with reporters at a Mar-a-Lago news conference, Trump said, “I look forward to these debates. I think it’s really important that we have them.”
