reporter: senator, you got there. i mean, i feel like for weeks you have not wanted to take questions about other senators objections to this bill, especially senator manchin s. but is it now incumbent upon him to come out and say this is what i m for, this is how that s exactly what i m that s exactly what i m saying, yeah. look, it s very easy to use vague phraseology. my concern with mr. manchin is not so much what his views are. i disagree with him. but it is that it is wrong. it is really not playing fair that one or two people think that they should be able to stop what 48 members of the democratic caucus want, what the american people want, what the president of the united states wants. that would be my position. so senator manchin has a right to fight for his point of view. he has not only a right to be heard, he has a right to get some compromises. he s a member of the senate. but two people do not have the right to sabotage what 48 want and what the president of the
help us with what compassionate and rewarding society is about. does that mean addressing the reality that 600,000 people in the country are homeless? does it mean dealing with the grotesque level of wealth inequality that we have? does it mean dealing with one out of four americans can t fill the prescriptions their doctors write because the price of drugs in this country is sometimes ten times higher than it is in canada and other countries? so we need some specificity. he wants to say i believe in an an entitlement society, i would not look at it use that phraseology. do i believe in a nation based on economic, social, racial, and environmental justice, yeah, frankly, i admit it, you got it right here on your show, i believe all americans are entitled as human beings to health care. i believe people are entitled to quality education regardless of their income. i believe that people are entitled to affordable housing.
that phraseology. do i believe in a nation based on economic, social, racial, and environmental justice, yeah, frankly, i admit it, you got it right here on your show, i believe all americans are entitled as human beings to health care. i believe people are entitled to quality education regardless of their income. i believe that people are entitled to affordable housing. i don t believe that two people are entitled to own more wealth than the bottom 40% of american society. and, by the way, one of the things that s playing out here, rachel, and i don t think the media has paid appropriate attention to it, is that in the midst of all of this, the ruling class of this country, and that is the drug companies, the insurance companies, fossil fuel industry, they re spending hurricane dreads and hundreds of millions of dollars. pharmaceutical industry has 1,500 paid lobbyists on capitol hill. three lobbyists for every member of congress so we don t raise prescription drugs. so this is a pivo
yeah. look, it s very easy to use vague phraseology. my concern with mr. manchin is not so much what his views are. i disagree with him. but it is that it is wrong. it is really not playing fair that one or two people think that they should be able to stop what 48 members of the democratic caucus want, what the american people want, what the president of the united states wants. that would be my position. so senator manchin has a right to fight for his point of view. he has not only a right to be heard, he has a right to get some compromises. he s a member of the senate. but two people do not have the right to sabotage what 48 want and what the president of the united states wants. that to me is wrong. reporter: when you listed off the measures that are popular that you seem to think manchin is opposed to, is it your understanding that senator manchin is calling for significant cuts to be pulled out of this or is this still a conversation about means testing? that s a great questio
senator bernie sanders held this remarkable press conference today, kind of breaking the glass for once, expressing his frustration with joe manchin s, what did he call it, vague phraseology, and complaining that he doesn t understand what senator manchin means when he talks about making the u.s. an entitlement society, senator manchin minimums put out a statement in response. he said, quote, respectfully, senator sanders and i share very different share? share very different policy and political beliefs. as he and i have discussed, senator sanders believes america should be moving towards an entitlement society while i believe we should have a compassionate and rewarding society. we don t know what i mean by entitlement society, okay? an entitlement society is whatever you believe and whatever i believe, that s not an entitlement society, what i believe involves a whole different set of vague but positive adjectives that mean nothing in this context but