trump than i did with obama and bush, trade. i think free trade has been a loser, i voted against nafta back in 1994. and if he comes up with a really good trade position we re not going to just necessarily say no but we re going to hold his feet to the fire and i can assure you of this anything we re going to support will get almost no republican votes. that may mean we support them on nothing. but we re not going to sacrifice our principles for the sake of compromise. but a unified party line vote at this point accomplishes nothing. i mean, can the democrats do anything alone? right now we can t do anything alone, but if it s really positive progressive type stuff it may not be and we pick up a few republicans, it would have to be with the majority of democrats in the house and senate. but the bottom line is our main job here is, as i said, hold his feet to the fire. it s not going to be to sit in a room and say where can we compromise? if he proposes things, that
you ve gotten, senate leadership and the kind of demonstrations you re calling for there, it s interesting calling for members of congress themselves and congress themselves ain t it? making that bridge. brings go both ways, i get it. in addition to that, though, you have your own organization. you have this post-election organization it s not my organization. that s illegal. i m a united states senator and i can t head it up. an organization came out of the sanders campaign for president called our revolution. and what that organization has done i am not involved, it would be illegal for me to be involved in the day-to-day operations. what they have done is a pretty good job in trying to elect candidates from the school board upo the united states house of representatives. and they have a pretty good record and they ve won some good victories and the goal of that organization is to get people involved in the political
president won the election by a huge margin and he was wide ridi huge wave of popularity. that was a head of steam in 2008. in contrast, the republicans are coming in with a new republican president, but they just lost seats in both houses of congress. they ve only got two-seat majority in the senate. their new president has the lowest approval ratings of any president-elect in the modern era and their incoming president, incidentally, i know it s a sore spot, he lost the popular vote by more votes than any incoming president ever in the history of this country. and so, democrats are thunder struck that they lost, but they re not exactly starting from scratch here. and the new guy taking charge for them on capitol hi has a history of winning uill political battles, even when they get ugly the point of being funny in retrospect. joining us now in his first interview since becoming minority leader in the senate is
strength. what do you say when people tell you they are afraid? i think there are legitimate reasons to be afraid. this guy will have his finger on the nuclear button. i think what is important, though, is to remember there have been very difficult times in american history. we have had a rocky history. i ask people, people say things are so awful today, 60, 70 years ago, black kids in the south were going to segregated schools, could not drink in a white water fountain. people fought back. a woman lost her run for president this year, 100 years ago today, women didn t have the right to vote. couldn t go to the schools they wanted. you are sitting here. you are a leading correspondent. that wasn t the case 50 years ago. gay rights, think of the revolution that has taken place over the last 20 years. the trade movement union and the struggle workers had to face.
people. bring them in to the political process and fight for the kind of nation that we know we can become. if there s anything that i learned, running for president, is there are this is not rhetoric. this is truth. there are so many decent, good, wonderful people out there who want to create a nondiscriminatory society, want to create a society of environmental justice, of social justice and economic justice. i believe that s the majority spirit in th country. our job is to mobilize those ople. senator bernie sanders of vermont. thank you. come back soon. we ll be right back.