Transcript of MeidasTouch Post-Midterm Special with Senator Sanders and Rep. Garcia

Of course, Congressmember Garcia will be the new chair of the House Oversight Committee, and I think once he became the Democratic leader for the House Oversight Committee, once he started injecting, I think, just the type of aggressiveness that we all wanted to see, even when Democrats were not in the majority, we saw major changes happen—aggressiveness in terms of getting the Epstein information out there. I won't say all the files, because Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans keep covering it up, but starting to hold people accountable with the limited powers that existed when you're not in the majority.

Now, Democratic Congressmember Garcia in the majority—a big deal. And I want to talk about that House Oversight Agenda, because to me it's like one of the most important mandates that Democrats have, which is aggressive, robust, and ruthless oversight of these MAGAs, of these crooks, of these criminals, of these oligarchs, of these truly evil and demonic people who have damaged our country so much, inflicted so much pain and trauma, and frankly, to heal, in order to move forward, we need to confront these truly evil forces, these oligarchs, these corrupt individuals in the Trump regime, the Trump grifter crime family.

They need to be held accountable right away. So I want to talk to Democratic Congressmember Garcia about that. And of course, I want to talk to Senator Bernie Sanders about how he started with that Fight the Oligarchy tour back in early 2025. We covered every—you remember?—every single Fight the Oligarchy rally with Democratic Congresswoman AOC. You had—who else would join that tour?

You had other major—well, first off, a lot of the Democratic Congress members-elect were part of that tour as well, and they were all showcased during the Fight the Oligarchy tour. But Senator Bernie Sanders was always such an incredible leader. His vision on making sure to fight for all Americans, to fight for affordability, to fight the oligarchy, to listen. One of the most important things in that Fight the Oligarchy tour—you remember when I would show it?—there would be an aspect of it where they would listen, and Senator Sanders would ask the people in the audience, "What do you think about this?

What do you think about that? Tell me what issues matter to you the most." And we would hear their fears about AI and regulated and data centers, and we would hear about how the oligarchs were screwing them over, the importance of releasing the Epstein files, affordability, how healthcare was being ripped away in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, that people are not getting healthcare, and people in the United States die significantly younger than people in other places of the world, and it doesn't have to be that way.

People not getting paid, but one just not even getting paid a minimum wage. And then we need to talk about a wage—not just a livable wage, but a wage with dignity. And there are so many candidates that were out there who won, and it was Senator Bernie Sanders who was responsible for, who that Fight the Oligarchy tour was responsible. And it was interesting. I hear about the mandate. The mandate, to me, clearly is a progressive mandate right now.

But the interesting thing is—and you know this from how I cover all of these events—what became very clear to me is just how the gamification of politics divides we, the people, and how even though, obviously, when we think about affordability and healthcare and housing, and when we think about wages with dignity and unions and workers, that's framed as progressive because those are significant progressive ideals, what I found interesting is that when you had Senator Sanders speak in "conservative" areas, what the people wanted was basically the same: healthcare and housing, affordability, and to be paid with dignity, and to be able to have a good education, and not to have data centers in their backyard, and to be safe.

I mean, there are so many things that are connected here, and it became very clear that when you have to fight the oligarchy, they're pouring so much money into politics in order to divide us, in order to create a rage culture where we're pitting people against each other while these oligarchs are the ones looting and stealing and grifting and taking from us. And so what became very clear, for example, and you'll see this in the Mississippi race with Scott Caloum, you talked about an area like Mississippi, when he's out there speaking with people and listening, people are like, "Oh, well, Mississippi is a red state.

It's a red state, and it's this and that." The people in Mississippi are saying the same thing that the people in New York City are saying, really, when it comes to affordability and cost of living and healthcare and AI and jobs and healthcare and all of these issues. And so I think that's such a profoundly important observation. I want to remind everybody about our book, WTF: America, The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy. Get a copy of it right now. All right, I'll stop yapping. I know. Ben, bring in Senator Sanders.

All right, let me bring in the first interview of the special post-midterm election edition of the MeidasTouch Podcast. Let's bring in my interview that I just did with Senator Bernie Sanders. Let's bring in Senator Bernie Sanders. Now I want to bring in Senator Bernie Sanders. Senator Sanders, great to see you. Of course, a major victory. I want to say this: for the people of this country electing individuals who will fight for the people of the country. Sure, the headline, a big Democratic victory.

I mean, we went to conservative parts of the country to hear where people were at. And I think what the Fighting Oligarchy tour showed is that people want—not only are they dissatisfied with the status quo, they really want fundamental and structural changes in the way our economy and government works. There is a full understanding that the economy is rigged. The rich are getting much richer.

Working people are struggling. The campaign finance system is corrupt. Billionaires buy elections. People made it clear they wanted change, and I think that rippled across the entire political spectrum and played a role in what we saw happen on Tuesday.

And at its core, what we really should be talking to are the issues that really matter to the people." And that's what kind of struck me when you went to these areas. These were the same issues that progressive people were talking about, that these oligarchs were crushing them.

We're worried about the future of the country." So what we heard in conservative areas from working people is exactly the same thing we heard in progressive areas. The system is broken. People want and demand change. And bottom line here, Ben, is it would be one thing if we were a poor country, and I said to you, "You know, Ben, 90 million people are uninsured or underinsured. We can't afford healthcare for all. We're a poor country." Or, "We can't afford to make sure that all of our kids can get to college without going deeply into debt."

Or, "We can't afford to raise the minimum wage to a living wage." We're a poor country. We are the richest country in the history of the world, but at the same time, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in our history. You got one man, Mr. Musk, owning more wealth than the bottom 53% of American households. Do you think conservative families think that's a good idea? No, they don't. So what we need to do is to make certain that when Democrats take power in January, their agenda is an agenda that is prepared to take on the oligarchs and fight for working families.

And we've got to get beyond generalities. What does that mean? Well, if you'll allow me a second just to tick off some of the things, in my view, that we have to do. Trump, in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, that terrible piece of legislation, threw 15 million people off of the healthcare that they have in order to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top 1%. If we do not act, tens of thousands of Americans will die because they don't have healthcare. That has got to be rescinded immediately.

But that is not enough. The healthcare system is broken. We need fundamental reform, and that means we need to do what every other major country on Earth does, and that is guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right. That means Medicare for All, four-year transition program. First year, lower the Medicare age of eligibility from 65 to 55, expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision, include all of the children, do away with out-of-pocket expenses.

That's number one. Number two, what do you do right now to impact the lives of ordinary people who are struggling? You raise the minimum wage to a living wage. Right now, insanely, 7.25 an hour federal minimum wage. Got to raise that minimum wage to, in my view, at least $20 an hour. Thirdly, if we're going to have the resources that we need to make sure that our elderly are living, can retire with dignity, and we don't have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth, we need a wealth tax on billionaires.

We have a proposal out there, $4 trillion over a 10-year period. We could provide in the first year $12,000 rebate cash for a family of four, $3,000 for every working-class person in this country for immediate relief. We can make public colleges and universities tuition-free. We can build 7 million units of low-income and affordable housing. We can have universal and free childcare. That's what we could do with a modest tax on a handful of billionaires because they are so very rich.

And obviously, it goes without saying, what this campaign was significantly about, as Vice President Vance pointed out, it was the war in Iran. That has got to end. We can end it. We can end all funding to the extremist government in Israel as well.

And corporate news is getting this completely all wrong, even after the results are staring us in the face.

You're giving the American people an alternative view outside of mainstream media, corporately-owned media, terribly important. But maybe most significantly, these guys increasingly own the political process. Now, they failed, and that's the good news, but not for lack of trying. The billionaires spent huge amounts of money trying to win this election to maintain Republican control over the House and the Senate.

Do you know how many lobbyists? I'll give you one example that comes to my mind. We pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Take a wild and crazy guess as to how many lobbyists there are from the pharmaceutical industry in Washington, DC. Take a crazy guess.

So I talk about building generational and international structures as well to fight back because these authoritarians are international in scope. We see the links. Talk to us about that.

They're just ordinary people. They're trade unionists. They're community organizers. In Montana, you have a guy who's a smoke jumper. They're teachers in California, a young man who's a teacher in a community college. So you're seeing now not only a new generation of younger people coming in, but a more diverse group of people, often people of color, a lot of women, and so forth. Your point, though, which we need a longer period of time to discuss, is the international issue.

It is not an accident that Elon Musk puts a whole lot of money into right-wing extremist parties in Germany and elsewhere, why Trump pays attention to right-wing parties in Latin America, and why this issue of oligarchy is not just an American issue. I often talk about how 1% owns more wealth here than the bottom 93%. That's true in country after country all over the world. You go to countries in the Gulf region, you go to UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar.

These are dictatorships run by some of the wealthiest families in the world. And interestingly enough, Ben, do you remember the first foreign policy trip that Donald Trump made when he came back to office? Do you remember where he went?

And you're quite right in saying that the response to that has got to be an international response, which, among other reasons, is why I was delighted that Lula won reelection in Brazil.

It is undermining the mental health of our kids who are getting addicted to AI and to having bot companions. And of course, as some leading scientists are telling us, there is an existential threat of what happens if AI becomes smarter than humans and we lose control over AI. What happens then? How often is this fundamental issue in which the big tech oligarchs, Musk and the others, pushing this forward without any government control?

How often are we even discussing that? So your point is the more important the issue, often the less that it is discussed. And we need to change that.

Donald Trump came to power because working-class people kind of gave up on the Democrats, and they said, "All right, Democrats aren't doing anything. We're going to vote for this guy, Donald Trump." People today have given up for all the right reasons on Donald Trump. Now they're looking to the Democrats. The Democrats cannot, at this enormously important moment, fail the working class of this country. We've got to stand with workers. We've got to take on the oligarchs, and we've got to produce and make sure that we make life better for the average working family.

That's what this challenge is about. We've got to do it.

I mean, that's what I think voters want. That's the message that was sent. When you see all of these statehouses turning blue, all of these state legislatures, right, turning blue, the state Supreme Courts turning blue, and of course, the massive victory Democrats had in the House of Representatives, what went all said and done, going to have like 260 seats, maybe more, right around there. In the Senate, 56 seats or so, right? I mean, when you talk about this, it's delivering on an agenda that helps people and rejects the hate and rejects the hate.

So incredible, such a great honor to be able to interview Senator Bernie Sanders. All right, now I want to bring in Democratic Congress member and soon-to-be chair of the House Oversight Committee. Let me bring in my interview with Democratic Congress member Robert Garcia. Let's bring in that interview. Now I want to bring in Democratic Congress member Robert Garcia, the new chair of the House Oversight Committee. Great to see you, chair-elect, but I'm just going to say you're the chair now in my heart, just a few months away. Your immediate message was lawyer up right there to let's talk about that.

Lawyer up. Talk about that message in general.

People need to understand that it's going to be our job to take on corruption and to ensure that as we're focused on affordability and bringing down the cost of gas and groceries, we're also holding the crooks accountable.

That's what I hear every day, Congressman.

So as people struggle, the Trumps get billions and billions of dollars richer. And that is at the heart of why people, I think, turned out. They saw the abuses, the corruption, how people are profiting off the humanity of ICE and DHS. They saw how the Trumps continue to get richer. And they're thinking, "All I want to be able to do to afford my life for me and my family." And so that's got to be at the center of our agenda. And I think it will be. I think people have been clear, Democratic leadership are clear that we're going to have both affordability and accountability as those two cornerstones of our agenda.

We want to protect our democracy. And that's going to be an important part of these next couple of years. And I think the country is demanding that of us. I've always said, for us to really be able to move forward, there has to be justice. There has to be accountability. And I think that's going to be the job of oversight.

And you know they're going to fight it and run like the cowards they are, but when do they get hit with subpoenas?

That's going to also be really critical. And then we're going to begin the planning. So once January's here, we're ready on day one. Look, we are prepared for that first day where we have those gavels and we're in control of the House to begin those investigations. The Trump family is at the top of the list of folks that need to answer questions to the American public. Why are they grifting? Why are they stealing your money? Why are they stealing everybody's wealth and hard-earned labor and then giving it to themselves and to their friends? Those are the quick questions people want to know.

Do you think there may be that when you return next week?

The country rejected what they tried to get through in that huge bill that caused so much harm to healthcare and tax policy. We need to make it very clear to the American public that the work isn't over. And I've told folks, and this is really important for your viewers as well, we are right now at the beginning. So we are in the process right now. This is not the end. This is the start of something new. This is the start of a larger movement towards winning the White House in '28, towards repealing all the horrible things that Trump has done, and to putting forward a new agenda that locks in a true progressive movement where we're uplifting working people, we're supporting all families, and we get back to a place of just common decency where people can actually be kind to each other and support each other.

I think that's what the American public want.

How do you build this team so that you've got the best talent that there is?

We have a job now, and that's to deliver. And we have to tell the American public clearly that, yes, affordability is the driving issue, but that accountability always, always, they're always linked. And without true reform of the corruption, we're never going to have an affordable America. We're never going to have these oil companies that are making record profits that are ripping you off at the pump, these large companies that are putting in surveillance pricing to charge you something different than what your neighbor's paying at the supermarket.

These are real issues, and they're ones that we're going to take on.

Transparency is really important here.

And then finally, of course, is the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. So true justice for the survivors, real public hearings, uplifting the stories, those are our key four lanes. And we're excited to get to work on those.

No, we could address the issues of cost of living. We could address the issues of affordability and jobs and healthcare. Very, very important, very important. Every day, put bill, pass legislation, pass it. If Trump wants to veto popular legislation that the people want, let him do it, but keep fighting for it and make it very clear that you're fighting for these bills and let's get that information out. At the same time, we can do both. Make sure that oversight is ruthless.

Subpoenas every damn day. Do not let these Trumpers, do not let the Trump crime family, do not let these oligarchs, do not let that criminal cartel, these gangsters, these, frankly, international gangsters get away with their crimes. Investigate the hell out of them. And I'm confident Congressman Garcia will. He showed us that he could do that. Anyway, that's our special edition for you.

Make sure you're subscribed to this YouTube channel. Thank you, everybody.