Photo : David Dee Delgado/ ( Getty )

Cardi B sat down with presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders to “educate” her followers on the issues fans told her they wanted to discuss, and they got an earful on everything from erasing student loan debt to ending police brutality.


Recorded at the Ten Nail Bar in Detroit last month, video of the encounter between the 77-year-old Vermont senator and the 26-year-old rap star dropped Thursday.

As Vox explains:

Cardi, who has a long history of being political—and of being a Sanders supporter—has been pushing for her fans to pay attention to the coming election, calling on people to get “educated” on the issues and to understand what the Democratic candidates are proposing.


Both Cardi and the senator have expressed mutual admiration for Franklin D. Roosevelt, the early-20th-century president credited with signing off on a set of economic policies referred to as the New Deal, and which included the creation of social safety nets like Social Security.

Cardi asked Sanders what he planned to do about wage inequality, recalling the economic hardship she faced trying to make ends meet before she found fame.

“As a New Yorker, not now, but you know, when I was not famous, I just felt like no matter how many jobs I got, I wasn’t able to make ends meet,” Cardi said. “Like, I wasn’t able to pay my rent, get transportation and eat.”


Adding: “Certain people [read: Trump] like to brag that there [are] more jobs now in America ... but what are they paying in these jobs? They practically pay nothing.”

“You got it. That is exactly the issue,” Sanders responded, touting his support for raising the national minimum wage to $15 per hour.


He also reiterated his proposal to wipe out student loan debt by taxing Wall Street speculation and to make public colleges and universities tuition-free.

Cardi also raised the issue of police brutality with Sanders.

“We constantly see on social media police brutality against black men and against minorities,” she said, adding: “We’re constantly seeing our men getting killed, every day and it seems like nobody cares.”


In addition, she spoke of the increasingly negative climate in the nation adversely impacting minorities under a “bully” president.

“We have this bully as a president,” Cardi said, “and the only way to take him out is by winning.”


Sanders proposed mandating that the U.S. Justice Department investigate whenever a police officer kills someone and said he’d back initiatives to make “police departments look like the communities they serve.”

Most importantly, Sanders said, if young people are really serious about making change, they need to register to vote and get engaged in the political process.


“Young people have got to get involved in the political process. Register to vote. It is not hard. It takes five minutes,” Sanders said. “Trump does not want people of color to participate in the political process. Participate in the political process.”