Hampshire institute of politics. Already tonight we heard from senators Amy Klobachar and Elizabeth Warren and right now is senator Bernie Sanders of vermont leading the field among the Harvard Institute of politics. Please welcome senator sanders. How are you doing . Good to see you. You too. Thank you. All right. How about our first question. Why not . Why not, indeed. What else do we have to do . Well talk later. Hes from massachusetts and a junior at the university of massachusetts, lowell. What have you got . Hi, senator. Hi. How are you . Good. You reduced your medicare for all legislation package, many of them are running along side of you for president of the United States. In this legislation you called for an end to private Health Insurance companies. How do you plan to phase out these companies for your new medicare for all insurance. Excellent question on a issue that millions of americans stay up nights about. We have a dysfunctional Health Care System in which 30 million americans have no Health Insurance at all. Even more are underinsured with high deductibles and copayments. We baby fpay by far the highests in the world. In terms of infant mortality and Life Expectancy not marparticuly good. And for all of that we spend twice as much per capita as any country on earth. The function of the current Health Care System is not to provide quality care for all in a Cost Effective way. The function of the Current System is to make billions of dollars in profits for the Insurance Companies and the drug companies. That is the function of the Current System and what i believe is that over a four year period which is what my legislation is about, were going to transform our Health Care System. So first year we go from 65 years of age to eligibility to medicare down to 55 and we cover all of the kids in the country and by the way, despite what President Trump says we expand benefits for senior citizens. Medicare is a very good program but it doesnt cover dental care. It doesnt cover eyeglasses and it doesnt cover hearing aids and we do that. Bottom line is i believe from the bottom of my heart that health care is a human right and not a privilege and the best way to go forward in my view is through medicare for all single payer program. Next question, ann, junior at harvard. Senator sanders, you said that you believe that people with felony records should be allowed to vote while in prison. Does this mean you would support infranchising people like the Boston Marathon bomber, a convicted terrorist and murder . Do you think that those convicted of Sexual Assault should have the opportunity to vote for politicians that could have a direct impact on womens rights . Thank you for the question. What our campaign is about is creating a vibrant democracy. Today as you know we have one of the lowest voter turn outs of my country on earth. I want to see one of the highest voter turn outs. Were seeing more young people getting involved in the political process but not enough. And in my view if young people voted at the same percentage that older people voted in this country we would transform this nation. But to get to your point, we live in a moment where cowardly republican vote governors are trying to suppress the vote. Right here in New Hampshire theyre working hard to make it more difficult for young people to vote and to me that is incredibly undemocratic, unamerican process and i say to those people, by the way, if you dont have the guts to participate in free and Fair Elections you should get another job and get out of politics. All right . So. So to answer your question, as it happens in my own state of vermont from the very first days of our States History our constitution says everybody can vote. So people in jail can vote. If somebody commits a serious crime, Sexual Assault, murder, theyre going to be punished. They may be in jail for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, their whole life. Thats what happens when you commit a serious crime but i think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy. Yes, even for terrible people because once you start chipping away and you say well that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote. Well that person did that. Not going to let that person vote, youre running down a slippery slope. So i believe people commit crimes and they paid the price and they have the right to vote. I believe even if theyre in jail theyre paying their price to society but that should not take away their american right to participate in our democracy. You think the Boston Marathon bomber should vote not after he pays his debt to society but while hes in jail. Are you sure about that . I think i have written many 30 second opposition ads throughout my life. This will be just another one. But i do believe this is what i believe. You believe in democracy . That every single american 18 years of age or older who is an american citizen has the right to vote . Once you start chipping away at that thats what our republican governors are doing. Coming up with all kinds of excuses while people of color, young people, poor people cant vote and i will do everything i can to resist it. This is a democracy this is a democracy and we have to expand that democracy and every person has a right to vote. She is a graduate student studying journalism. Shes here from georgia. Your views on reparations surprised me especially since one of the messages of your campaign is closing the wealth gap. For black people it stems from the aftermath of slavery. If its not part of your plan to end the wealth gap for black people, what is . What i have said is there is legislation in the house. And i have said if the house and the senate pass it i will sign it and that will call for a study of the implications of reparations and i think what kenya is saying is what we all know to be true. Today in america in the midst of massive income disparity we have another disparity between black and white. African American Families have one tenth the wealth that white families have and that is unacceptable and we have to deal with it. Now the way i think we can most effectively deal with that and this is an idea i didnt come up with it. A congressman from south carolina, he called it the 102030 legislation which means that you use 10 of federal funds. That is a lot of money to focus on communities all over the country, minority kmuncommuniti who have longterm poverty and we focus on those communities. We make sure that all of the kids get the education that they need. They get the health care that they need. We improve the infrastructure. We improve broadband. We create a situation in these distressed communities where we take people out of poverty all across the country. Thats the direction i think we should go. Next question. Jordan cook, sophomore studying politics and history here. He is from maine. Jordan, whats your question. Hello senator sanders. We live in the age of globalization. International trade has become increasingly necessary for a nation to remain prosperous. Trump in recent Years Limited our trade influence in nations in africa and latin america which has given the russians and chinese a chance to influence such regions. What will your trade policy be in such regions compared to trump . Good question. Youre right. We live in a global economy. I think all of us understand the importance of trade, but i happen to believe in fair trade. Not free trade. Because in the context of your question, you have to appreciate that disastrous trade agreements like nafta, perm nananent norma trade relations with china and others resulted in millions of americans, hard working people who have lost their jobs because profitable corporations in this country shutdown because they werent making enough money and they thought they could make more money going abroad paying people 1 an hour or 2 an hour. So i believe in trade but it has to be a trade policy that works for working people and not just the ceos of large corporations and your point is also right. Were seeing china move aggressively in latin america and africa and asia and this is an issue we have to deal with as well. But bottom line is trade is a good thing but theres a reason why millions of americans have seen a decline in their standard of living. They once had decent paying jobs. Those jobs were shifted abroad and thats something that i disagree with strongly. Senator sanders, you recently released 10 years of your tax returns. I did. Lets talk about that topic. Ellen is a freshman at harvard and grew up in massachusetts. Whats your question for the senator. Senator sanders, thank you for being here. Your tax returns recently revealed that you are, in fact, a millionaire. How would you respond to concerns that your financial status undermines your authority as someone who has railed against millionaires and billionaires . Thats a good question. And here it is. All right. You ready to have me plead guilty. I plead guilty to have written a book which was an International Best seller. Okay . And when you write a book that makes it to the top of the New York Times best seller list, you make money. And i made money. I suspect that in a couple of years my salary will go back to 173,000 which is what a member of congress gets. But i think your question should ask, well, now that you wrote a book and you made money, is that going to mean that you change your policies . Well, youre looking at somebody who not only voted against trumps disastrous tax plan, 83 of the benefits going to the top 1 . But i have and will continue in this campaign to fight for progressive taxation. In other words, whether its Bernie Sanders or your family or anybody else in america when we have so much income and wealth inequality. When the people on top are doing phenomenally well, yeah, if you are doing very, very well in our economy you should be paying your fair share of taxes. We will raise those taxes for the upper income people. We will do away with the tax loopholes and the tax breaks that large private corporations currently receive. Do you happen to know anybody here happen to know how much amazon paid in taxes last year . Zero. Owned by the wealthiest guy in america. Thats an absurd tax system and if elected president ill change it. Two quick follow ups. You said you expect your salary to go back down. Unless i write another best seller. I dont know. Or, who makes more than that . What does the president of the United States make . I dont know. 400. Are you saying that youre not going to win . No. Im not saying that. Im just saying that i dont think anybody believes that because i wrote a best seller that i change my views and youll now hear me say maybe we ought to give tax breaks to millionaires. So you made a lot more money than you did the year before because of the book. Charitable donations when we look at your taxes went up but they didnt go up proportionally. Im not coming after you about what you gave in your donations. My question is this, having the experience of having more money and deciding what you wanted to do with it, did it give you more perspective about how people with more money feel about the government or somebody like you forcing policies that demand them to give amounts as opposed to what they want to give . As a matter of fact if you read the tax returns, we were not aggressive. We didnt go to accountants and figure out how we can possibly pay the lowest amount in taxes. Probably paid more than we should have. You raise an interesting question. I grew up in a family that was a working glass family. I lived in a rent controlled apartment in new york. I knew what paycheck to paycheck life was about. I knew what tension was about in a family. Ill tell you the difference now. When i was a kid my family had to worry about how theyre going to pay this bill or how theyre going to pay that bill. I dont have to worry about that now. That stress is off my family and that is a great relief and i have spent my entire life and hopefully will conclude my political life in the white house trying to make sure that every person in this country does not have to deal with the stress of whether they can afford to pay the electric bill, whether theyre going to have health care, whether they can send their kids to child care. So that is the difference that i have learned. Its great not to have to worry about whether your electricity or phone bill is going to be shut off and i want every person in this country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world to be able to live in that kind of way. Next question, sophomore at harvard studying government from minnesota. Gabriel. Hi, senator. What is one thing that you have changed your mind about recently . Nothing. Ive been con ssistent for jt kidding. I have been paying more attention to Foreign Policy. I was rightfully criticized the last time around because i didnt pay as much attention as i might. The economy issues, whether people have health care and whether they have decent paying jobs and deal with Climate Change is enormously important but we have to look at the United Statess role in the world as well and probably a few years ago i would not have been as involved as i have recently been in demanding and helping in the senate to pass a resolution to get the United States out of the saudi lead intervention in yemen. [ applause ] and for the first time in 45 years under the war powers act, it has been successfully used. We did it in the senate and we did it in the house. Sadly, tragically trump vetoed it. But to answer your question more about Foreign Policy issues than i previously did. All right. Good place to stop. Well take a quick break. Please come back. We have a lot more of cnns special democratic president ial town hall event right now with senator Bernie Sanders. 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Well, what i agree is that we have the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country. Somebody who is a pathological liar. Somebody who the Mueller Report said left the question open which congress has to explore as to whether or not he obstructed justice. A very serious crime. To my view is twofold. First it goes without saying that the congress has got to take a hard look at that and do a hard investigation and ask subpoena the people who were mentioned in that report and get to the truth. Did trump actually obstruct justice . But here is my concern. At