By Rachel Maddow Show - October 5, 2009

RACHEL MADDOW: Joining us now is the man who introduced that amendment, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, who is also only one of seven senators to vote against de-funding the community group ACORN. Sen. Sanders, thanks very much for joining us tonight.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Good to be with you, Rachel.

MADDOW: Your proposed amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill focuses on defense contractors. And I know that Project On Government Oversight has already done some investigating into fraud and other problems with defense contractors. Who would be the worst hit here?

SANDERS: Well, you're looking at the big three defense contractors - that's Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman. And Rachel, since 1995, these three companies have been cited 109 times - 109 times for misconduct. They have been fined or reached settlements for $2.9 billion.

So here, you have major multinational corporations who on a systemic basis have been ripping off the American people. And I think if we can go after ACORN, and I voted against that, that ACORN received $53 million over 15 years, you're looking at companies that have received hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars and their punishment in 2007 was $77 billion in government contracts. So there is a scandal here and we've got to take a hard look at it.

MADDOW: The thing that is politically ambitious and impressive and makes a good story about this is the way that the attack on ACORN has been turned back by you in the Senate and by these liberal members of the House on the other side - in the other chamber, turned back on the people attacking ACORN to say, "You know what? Put your money where your mouth is. If you're really against contractors who have done anything wrong, let's say it applies to everyone."

What sort of arguments are you hearing against your amendment? What sorts of arguments are you hearing from people who aren't willing to go along with it?

SANDERS: Well, you know what the most obvious argument is? That if you barred these corporations from receiving funds, the military would collapse, because these are the major contractors, the people who supply the weapons systems to our military.

So you have a situation where these major contractors, year after year after year, have been engaged in systemic fraud to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. And yet, if you really went after them you would have them not supplying the weapons system that the military has asked for.

MADDOW: And that argument -

SANDERS: That's the response.

MADDOW: And that argument in itself makes the case for why these companies have been able to get along - get away with it for so long. If they're seen as necessary, then nobody is going to crack down on them for anything, right?

SANDERS: And Rachel, I think the point to add to that is that a lot of these investigations were done under the Bush administration which I think, as most people know, was not very hard in terms of investigating large companies.

So what we may be seeing in terms of 109 instances of misconduct is certainly - could be just the tip of the iceberg. So my point is, the time is now. Instead of going after little groups like ACORN, let's take on the big guys who have been ripping off the American people to the tune of billions and billions of dollars, and by the way, in some instances, by producing defective equipment have put the lives of American servicemen at risk.

MADDOW: Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, thanks for your time tonight, sir. I really appreciate it.

SANDERS: Thank you.