LAS VEGAS – Sen. Bernie Sanders made several stops in Las Vegas Thursday on a Nevada leg of his 2020 campaign tour.

Before stepping behind the podium for a raucous town hall rally in the Roy W. Martin Middle School gymnasium, the 77-year-old self-described Democratic Socialist running for president granted an exclusive interview to the USA Today Network.

Sanders had a lot to say about cannabis, nuclear waste and the labor union vote. And he even opened up about the tiring nature of the campaign trail.

Here are the highlights of a chat with the longtime Independent senator from Vermont ...

On decriminalizing marijuana ...

"Four years ago when I was here, you know what I said? I said we had a broken criminal justice system. At the root of that broken system is a war on drugs, which has got to be ended. That means the legalization and the decriminalization of marijuana. And I'm very proud that over the last four years, we have made some significant progress. Four years ago that seemed like a wild and crazy idea. Not anymore. State after state is doing that. I believe at the federal level what we have got to do is allow states to do what they want to do completely – and that is that marijuana companies can use banking services and so forth and so on."

On Yucca Mountain ...

"I've talked to my old friend Harry Reid about this a whole lot. And I agree with Harry, I always have. Yucca Mountain is not a suitable place for the permanent storage of high level nuclear waste. That's just the simple fact for a variety of geological reasons. So what we have to do is come up with a solution to the problem – and that problem is not Yucca Mountain."

On the labor union vote heading into 2020 ...

"We just talked to some trade unions yesterday. I believe I have the strongest pro-union record of any candidate, and I will be the strongest pro-union president of the United States since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The fact of the matter is that we're not going to see the middle class grow unless we see unless we see the trade union movement grow. It absurd that the average worker today – the person right in the middle of the economy – is in real dollars not making any more than he or she did 43 years ago. And one of the reasons for that is the decline in the trade union movement. So we've got legislation in that will expand – make it easier for workers to join unions. We have legislation in that would raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour – equal pay for equal work for women. So I think we have an agenda that will speak to the needs of unions and working people in general."

On the affordable housing crisis in America ...

"500,000 people in America today who tonight are going to be sleeping out on the street. This is America. Half a million people do not have any homes. And you have other people who are paying 40, 50, 60 percent of their limited incomes for housing. That is crazy. So when I talk about rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, I'm talking about affordable housing. Building the millions of units we need to allow people to have good, safe, clean housing without having to spend half of their income on it."

On whether he gets tired of hearing himself talk on the campaign trail ...

"(Laughs) ... I'm not going to tell you that it's not hard. I was recently in New Hampshire. We did 10 events in two days. That's a lot. And we're working pretty hard in Nevada as well. It is hard and it is tiring, but I really do get energized by the people that I meet. I really do, and that's just not rhetoric. You see some great people, we talk to some great people, and they give me the energy that I need to make sure that we're going to win this election."