In the wake of the shooting attempt against Donald Trump, the United States doesn’t need more “radical rhetoric,” Sen. Bernie Sanders told anchor Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” Sunday. Instead, the country should hold “a serious discussion of where we are as a nation and how we go forward.” He added, “You know, in a certain way, Kristen, politics should be kind of boring.”
“Our health care system is dysfunctional. How do we fix it? Well, it’s kind of a boring discussion,” Sanders said. “But we need a health care system that guarantees health care for all people. We have massive income and wealth inequality. Well, maybe a boring discussion.”
“Should three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society?” he continued, running down his own priorities. “So I think what we have got to see is serious discussion of serious issues, and not this kind of harsh rhetoric that we have heard for the last number of years.”
At the beginning of the conversation, Sanders said the U.S. now has the opportunity to “take a deep breath, remember what this country is about and what political campaigns are about, and they’re about serious discussions of serious ideas as to how we address these serious problems facing this country.”
“So let’s use this moment,” he added. “If there’s any silver lining in this tragedy, it’s to figure out how we go forward peacefully, constructively and intelligently.”
Welker also asked the senator if the shooting will have an impact on conversations about whether or not President Joe Biden should drop out of the 2024 presidential race, and he was quick to reply in the negative.
“No, I don’t. Look, I don’t. I mean, I think President Biden is the strongest candidate the Democrats have. I think he has a very, very effective record that he can run on,” Sanders said.
“We are finally lowering the cost of prescription drugs,” he continued. “We are rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure finally. We’re beginning to deal with the existential threat of climate change. We’re trying to do our best to protect a woman’s right to control her own body. It’s a strong record.”
You can watch the full interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders in the video at the top of this story.
