Q: Thank you, senator, for sitting down with the Guardian here in New Hampshire. Your schedule is pretty gruelling – I can testify having followed you around for the last week in Iowa and Baltimore. One of the things that struck me was the energy in many of the rooms that you keep filling. Is that how you keep going?



A: That’s a very good question and the answer is absolutely. When I see large numbers of people who are excited, who want to see real change in this country, who want to participate in the political process, it really does. It physiologically changes me. As opposed to sometimes [when] you give speeches. … They go ‘Oh no, these academic types,’ and there’s not a lot energy in the room. That has an impact. So the answer to your question is yes: I feed off the energy of the people that we talk with.



Q: One of the other things that’s noticeable in these rooms is just how many young people there are. That must be pretty daunting in some respects. You are almost like the voice of a generation here. What happens if you let them down?



A: You are absolutely right and if we had been sitting here six months ago, I would never have predicted that would happen and today I cannot tell why that is the case. This generation, the younger generation, are supposed to apathetic, they are supposed to be not interested in politics and yet they are flocking out there to our meetings. All the polls out there show us winning – and sometimes by big numbers – from [young] people, not just young people – 45, 50 years of age and younger. In fact our problem now is getting to the older people and we’re gonna focus on that. Why that’s so, I can’t tell you, but I think there is a hunger out there on the part of an entire generation that understands that something is profoundly wrong in the country today and we have got to move in a very, very different direction. I am deeply gratified by that kind of support and trust that we are seeing from young people. And, you’re right, the fear about letting down people is something that worries me very much. But we are going to do our best to keep the faith and to fight to create a world that they will be part of and they will be proud of.

There is a hunger out there on the part of an entire generation that understands that something is profoundly wrong

Q: I was talking to some students in Iowa after one of your speeches and they said that what they liked about you was that you didn’t talk down to them. You told them how it was, which they didn’t feel they got from other politicians.

A: I think that young person has made a perceptive remark. You followed me around right? I understand what a normal political speech is. You get up there, tell a few jokes, you have the flags behind you, and you speak for 10 or 15 minutes in broad generalities. You have heard me speak, sometimes for an hour and 15 minutes. When I really get going, sometimes for an hour and a half. Nobody does that. Then why do I do it? Because this country and this planet faces enormous problems. I don’t know how to say all of that in a six-second soundbite, or even a 15-minute speech. So they come in, and you know what blows me away? You’ve been there. They listen! People are paying attention. I think there is a real hunger out there for people to understand, to try to think about why this country, where it is today. Who talks about it? Technology is exploding, right? Worker productivity is up. [So] why are people working longer hours for lower wages? Why is the middle class in America for the last 40 years disappearing? Why do we have a massive level of wealth and income inequality? Think NBC is going to report it? CBS? Fox News? I don’t think so. So people go ‘Yeah, that’s right’. ‘What do we do about climate change?’ ‘Is it real?’. Of course it’s real. Why do we have a situation where public colleges and universities are not tuition free? Why are the wealthy, and large corporations, not paying their fair share of taxes? We are trying to put together a programme that encompasses a broad progressive ideology: from women’s rights, to job creation, to protecting our planet, and I think people respond to that.



Bernie Sanders delivers remarks during a campaign rally in Manassas, Virginia, in September. Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty Images

Q: I wanted to start with inequality, which is at the heart of what you stand for. No one diagnoses the problem better than you in many ways. [But] I am not always completely sure how some of the things you suggest are going to fix it. You talk about bad trade policies, and corporate greed, and these are aspects, but a lot people think there are broader trends – you mention technology – that changes in the labour market and the economy are much harder to touch with policy. How will you design a way around that?

A: Look, there is no magical solution. But the ideas that I am presenting will go a long long way to expand the middle class of this country, raise wages and bring more income and wealth equality. So what are we doing? For a start, we are recognising the fact that real unemployment in this country is not 5%, it’s 10%. Before you can address the problem, you have to recognise it. We have a jobs crisis in America. Several easy ways to go forward are: rebuilding the crumbing infrastructure which we have in America – investing $1tn over five years creates 13m jobs – putting money into the hands of working people enables them to spend that money, creating more jobs. Number two, the education system in this country is in deep deep distress. The childcare system is dysfunctional. We can create many hundreds of thousands of jobs improving education, mentoring our young people so they are not dropping out of school. Making sure they get good jobs. That’s the simple stuff. Instead of giving subsidies to large multinational corporations, we need to provide help to small and medium sized businesses who in fact are creating new jobs. We need to deal with our trade policy, as you indicated, so that corporate America starts investing in this country, not in China. So, there is no single magical solution, but there is a clearly a lot we can do to raise wages, to lower unemployment and to better educate our people.

Q: You mentioned how the corporate media doesn’t like to talk about this stuff, and I was struck in Iowa how you were filling room after room with very excited people but the one thing missing was lots of reporters. It is very noticeable: the disconnect between the mood on the ground and the mood I read about and see on TV. How worried are you about that? You are seeing 28,000 people in Iowa face-to-face, but there are a quarter of a million caucus-goers. How are you going to bridge the gap? How do you get to those people you can’t physically see.

ABC Evening News has provided 80 minutes to Donald Trump and 20 seconds to me. Does that shock me? Not really

A: Well, for a start, remember (and that number’s going to go up, we still have a month to go), if you are talking to 10%, 15% of the voters, that’s a lot. They have uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters and so forth. Obviously we do TV advertising, we are in the media all of the time. But at the heart of what we are trying to do, and has always been my type of politics, is grassroots. Right now, as we speak, we have people in Iowa and New Hampshire on the telephone, knocking on doors, talking to people. At the end of the day, I think that is the most effective way to change minds, to bring people into the movement with direct, one-to-one discussion. In terms of the corporate media, the criticism is: number one, there was the study that came out the other day – ABC Evening News has provided 80 minutes of time to Donald Trump, they have provided 20 seconds to me. Does that shock me? Not really. This is a corporately owned media, this is a corporate agenda. They are not necessarily sympathetic to what I have to say. But in the broader sense – above and beyond me or Donald Trump – this is the critique: in our country, and around the world, people are facing enormous problems. The middle class of this country is disappearing. What does that mean? It means you have people with two or three jobs, worried to death about their children, worried about their own retirement. Are they talking about that on television? I don’t think so. So, to a large degree, news becomes entertainment. If it bleeds it leads. If you have a fire, that’s really interesting. But how are you going to retire, if you are the half of the American people at 55 who have zero in savings for their retirement. They are not talking about that. What about the morality of the top one-tenth of 1% owning as much wealth as the bottom 40%? Do you think that’s an issue that should be talked about? I do. Does the corporate media? No, of course not. So my criticism is that a lot of people out there today are hurting, they are struggling, and no one is talking about it. And that further isolates them.

Q: It does mean you have a huge mountain to climb if there are so many things that need fixing. Some people think that sounds unrealistic. Other people love the fact that there is a Christmas list of things that you’ve identified. To what extent should we look at that long list as realistic first term things that will get done, and to what extent are you just describing a broader philosophy?

A: I know I have been considered to be very, very radical. For a start, on almost every issue that I’m talking about – and this is what the media does not appreciate: there is vast amount of support among people. We are not talking about nationalising this, that or the other, we are talking about rebuilding our crumbling national infrastructure, creating 13m new jobs. And the American people say: ‘Yup, we need more jobs.’ Asking the wealthy and large corporations to pay their share of taxes? Republicans and Democrats think so. What about making public colleges and universities tuition free? Is that radical? No it’s not. So, first of all, I think the ideas that we are talking about have broad appeal. Number two, they may seem to be a long list of separate issues, but they are all tied together in one important way. And that way is that today in America, we are living in a country that is moving quite rapidly toward an economic oligarchy and a political oligarchy. When I talk about a political revolution, I’m talking about challenging and ending that political oligarchy and once you do that then other things fall in place. It’s not a question of rebuilding our infrastructure and creating jobs or making public universities and colleges tuition-free. If you are prepared to tell Wall Street they are going to have to pay a tax on speculation, we can make public colleges and universities tuition-free. We have seen a massive transfer of wealth in this country over the last 30 years from the middle class to the top 1/10 of 1%. I think we can reverse that, and if we do that a lot of good things will happen.

Q: One sign that it is resonating, it seems to me, is that these are issues that other Democratic candidates are talking about now in a way that they weren’t before you started campaigning. To what extent do you think that’s a sign that you have won whatever happens? That you have shifted the debate?

A lot of people out there today are hurting, they are struggling, and no one is talking about it

A: I think we have shifted the debate. It’s very hard for any campaign to look around and see hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic people coming to our meetings, who are the future. Every poll out there has us winning – sometimes very significantly – among younger people. And people have got to look out there and say, my God, if we are worried about the future of the Democratic party we had better start listening and paying attention to what Sanders’ supporters want. And then you are seeing Hillary Clinton and others beginning to move in our direction. But ultimately what the real issue is is which candidate is prepared, frontally, to take on the billionaire class. Can you receive huge amounts of campaign contributions from Wall Street and the wealthiest people in this country and say: ‘Well I’m going to really take them on’? The answer is no, you are not going to do that. I will. That’s what I’ve been doing my entire life. The greed of corporate America and Wall Street is destroying the economy of the United States. These guys have got to be confronted. We need changes in the power structure of America, politically and economically, and that’s what we are doing.

Q: Your campaign pulled an advert the other day that was specifically linking Hillary Clinton to Wall Street. A lot of people appreciate your desire not to go negative personally, but do you need to do more to delineate the differences between you and Secretary Clinton?

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders at a Democratic presidential primary debate in Des Moines, Iowa. Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP

A: I think we are going to continue to do that because obviously there are very significant differences. I believe, during the 1990s, President Bill Clinton and the Republicans fought very hard to deregulate Wall Street. I led the opposition to that. I did not think it was a good idea to allow investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies to merge. My view today is that we have got to break up these huge institutions that have so much political and economic power. We have to re-establish Glass Steagall. That is not Secretary Clinton’s point of view. My view is that in terms of foreign policy, regime change without worrying about what happens the day after you get rid of the dictator does not make a lot of sense. I voted against the war in Iraq; helped lead the war against the war in Iraq. God, I only wish that I had been successful in stopping that war that given all that has happened since with the rise of Isis and so forth. Secretary Clinton voted for that war. She was proud to have been involved in regime change in Libya, with Gaddafi, without worrying I think about what happened the day after and the kind of instability and the rise of Isis that we have seen in Libya. In terms of environmental policy, I was from day one in opposition to the Keystone pipeline. It took her a long time to come about. Trade policy is the same thing. So I think the differences between Secretary Clinton and myself are pretty profound. She has a Super Pac. I don’t have a Super Pac. Almost all of our contributions are coming from small and medium-sized donations.

I think the differences between Secretary Clinton and myself are pretty profound

Q: One area she is trying to draw a line between you two on is guns. What puzzles me is that what you are proposing on banning assault weapons and forcing background checks, these are pretty mainstream Democratic positions, and yet somehow you are being painted at this gun nut. Have you been slurred on this? Or do you think you missed a trick to explain yourself? You don’t talk about it on the road.



A: The last poll in New Hampshire, had more people supporting my view than Hillary Clinton’s, and my view is pretty simple and that is we need to put together a broad consensus – which exists – and we need to implement into legislation the consensus that exists today. What is that consensus? First of all, most significantly, guns should not get into the hands of people who everybody knows shouldn’t have them. If you were beating up your wife, if you are involved in criminal activity, if you are on a terrorist list, may be you should not have a gun. I think most people agree with that. And that means improving and expanding the instant background check. You want a gun? Fine, we’re going to check out your background, and if you are a criminal or you are mentally ill, guess what? You are not going to get that gun. There is a gun show loophole, which says you can circumvent the background check by going to a gun show and getting guns. We have to deal with that. I happen to believe that certain types of assault weapons, which are manufactured and designed for military purposes to kill people very quickly should not be used in civilian society. I believe we have to deal with what is called the strawman provision, which means that you can walk in and legally buy a gun and then sell it to him who is a criminal. We need to deal with that. We need to radically change mental health treatment in this country, so if people are walking around in mental health crisis, they get care now, not three months from now. That is a broad consensus. That is what I believe, what I have voted for. It is not very different from what Hillary Clinton or anybody else believes. But politics being what it is, they saw that as a vulnerability of mine because I come from a state that doesn’t have any gun control but I think we’re handling it fine now.



Q: What about foreign policy, which you were criticised for not talking about at first, but is now a big part of your stump speech. Like Obama, you talk about “sensible” not aggressive foreign policy, but in the short run it has created problems for him. What would you do more practically, more immediately, to tackle Isis?



A: First of all, sometimes in our country, especially among our Republican friends who suffer from amnesia, we forget what happened yesterday. I can remember like it was yesterday, when we had a “tough” president. George W Bush, and his vice-president was even tougher. So tough! And they went into Iraq, man, and they got rid of Saddam Hussein, terrible guy. But they forgot to be thinking about what happens the day after you get rid of Saddam Hussein. What has happened in that region, as everybody knows, is there is massive instability, human tragedies beyond belief. In terms of people in that region, in terms of American soldiers, there is PTSD, traumatic brain injury 6,700 dying, So we have to be smart and not just tough. And that means it’s not just destroying Isis, it’s making sure we do it in a way that leads to a better future and more stability in that region. And that means, absolutely in my view, that it cannot simply be as we did in Iraq – Secretary Clinton voted for that war; I did not – it cannot simply be unilateral American action. What it means is a broad coalition, in which the troops on the ground are Muslim troops.



Bernie Sanders, flanked by Imam Talib Shareef, left, and Rep Keith Ellison, speaks during a discussion on standing up to anti-Muslim rhetoric. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

Q: And if they aren’t there? Because that’s my question. That would ideal, but they are not there at the moment, so how would you make it happen?



A: I think the United States, UK, France, Germany, Russia, have the power to make sure that there are Muslim boots on the ground. You are seeing more and more of that. You are seeing King Abdullah, who I think has been a real hero of this thing, making it clear that at the end of the day, the only way we destroy Isis is with Muslim boots on the ground. Because if it is just American boots coming, what do you think Isis’s propaganda network is? Here come the Americans. Here comes the west. Muslims around the world, join us to take on the west! Be he can’t say that when it is Muslim troops destroying Isis. We have got to be supportive of them, and by that I mean a broad coalition, including Russia, including the UK, including France, giving them air support, the kind of training they need, special forces where necessary, but at the end of the day this war will be by Muslim troops on the ground with our support. That’s the type of coalition that has got to be aggressively put together.



Q: Is there anything you would do that Obama isn’t already doing? It’s not working right now, are you saying ‘just be patient guys’?



A: Sometimes as Americans, we are not patient. Can anybody guarantee that there is not going to be another attack: Isis or some terrorist group? Any idiot, especially one who is prepared to die, who has a gun, can start shooting up people. Can I guarantee you, can you guarantee me that this will not happen? Nobody can. But what we have got to do is number one is do everything we can do to prevent those occurrences – understanding they might happen – but second of all, longer term, be smart about how we rid this world of the scourge of international terrorism. That’s not going to happen tomorrow. We have got to think it through and be smart, not just going in there throwing around guns and over-throwing regimes, but long term how we create a stable region. May be the area that I would be a little bit different from Obama is I would put more pressure on Saudi Arabia, on Qatar, which happens to be per capita the wealthiest country on earth – enormous amounts of natural gas – they have got to start investing their resources to destroy Isis, not just worry about the World Cup in 2022.



Senators Bernie Sanders on Elizabeth Warren: ‘She’s a good friend and a great United States senator.’ Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call,Inc

Q: Couple of quick campaign questions. You have clearly got lots of friends. You approaching 2 million individual donations ...



A: … We have got 800,000 individual contributors, but you’re right, a total of 2 million contributions.



Q: Endorsements from unions are beginning to come in. You’ve had a couple, I think, and there may be one more coming. What about other people like Bernie Sanders, who are with you. Do you see anybody out there who might make a running mate?



A: Yes. In terms of a running mate, there are some great, great people – some of whom are well known, some of whom are not well known. We got men and women out there in this country who have spent their lives fighting for social justice, economic justice, environmental sanity. There are some great great people we could work with.



Q: If you had a wishlist. If you were talking of a fantasy running mate, who would it be?



Q: Dead or alive? Figure from history?



A: Not as a running mate, but one of my heroes who has played an extraordinarily important role in transforming America is Martin Luther King Jr. I read a lot about him. I was there in 1963 for the march on Washington and his vision for America is something.

Q: She’s not quite in the same league, but Elizabeth Warren? Is she somebody you have talked to?

A: Well, Elizabeth and I talk all the time. We have worked together on many, many issues. She’s a good friend and a great United States senator.



Q: Back on the campaign. You are doing very well in New Hampshire. Iowa, who knows? Some people still think you could upset the apple cart there.



Ted Cruz is not sensible. Maybe compared with Trump, but in no other context

A: The last poll had us nine points behind, which means that it is a winnable campaign. We think we have got a real good shot at Iowa. Polling is OK and we have got a really good ground operation.

Q: What about the Super Tuesday wall? How do you go from early state success to taking on this huge Clinton money machine in those states in the South where you have not done too well.

A: We are doing better in the south. We have gotten focused on the African American vote. And to be honest with you we started off in a very low level. We are making progress and the polling is indicating that. I believe that our campaign has the objective that really makes sense for the African American community, our job is to get it out there in terms of criminal justice and economic reform. So we have got a lot of work to do in that area. In Nevada, I think we are making real progress. In states like Massachusetts and South Carolina, we are going to do pretty good. We’ve got a lot of work to do but I’m feeling pretty confident.

Q: Last one. Who’s scarier: Ted Cruz or Donald Trump?

A: Ha. They’re scary. They each have their issues. But at the end of the day, I am absolutely confident we can defeat both. If Trump or Cruz, or Rubio, is the nominee.

Q: But does it worry you that suddenly Ted Cruz is the sensible one?

A: Ted Cruz is not a sensible one. Maybe compared with Trump, but in no other context.

Q: Thank you for your time, senator.