Earlier this month, former president jimmy carter in vermont senator, Bernie Sanders talked about human rights. Also American Leadership in the world and the trump administration. Hosted by the Carter Center, this is just under one hour. Maybe this is our nations great transition. We are living in a difficult time as we have been hearing that the less three days. They from all over the world we have human rights activists from 31 countries in every region that have come together to consult and say what do we do in these difficult times . , we breathe and push Forward Together . It is our honor and privilege to have with us tonight two of americas most admired leaders. [applause] their conversations about how te withstand for human rights of the world. How does america, as imperfect as it is when it comes to human rights, bring back human rightsa to the centerpiece of our lives . I would like to start with you, president carter question. If you could summarize what you have heard today, where are we and what we need to do now . I think the best, and i heard today that summarizes it is that we are struggling now to keep going what we achieved in theana past. We have slipped backwards and human rights all over the world. One of the key reasons is that other countries they use to use the United States of america as. A beacon light of truth in human rights and justice and freedom. U it can no longer see us as a beacon light of hope of the future. Quite often a government that is inclined to violate human rights when it sees the United States abandoned that is one of our key elements of foreignpolicy. They say it is okay for us to do it now. I think weve seen the world slip backward in honoring and promoting championing and fighting for human rights and holding it as a key guide to all of us. Senator sanders, how do you see this problem now Going Forward . Expresse is america hopes to be a leader in human rights, were in a difficult time, what is our priority now . Before a start let me express my joy at being here at the Carter Center with a man not only is respected by the vast majority of the people of our country, those who may agreeag politically and those who disagree, but has lived his life in mrs. Carter and amy with incredible dignity. We are also proud of what you have achieved as president and after president. Im delighted to be here. [applause] let me answer your question by saying, im not going to say anything that would shock anybody in this room i dont think. The leadership of this country today, in fact believes very strongly in human rights. We are in a new moment, Pivotal Moment in american history. Sr we have a president , again i dont mean to be disrespectful to anybody, least of all the president , but he is in contrast to the gentleman here. We have a president to lies all of the time. It is very hard to deal, i dont mind people disagreeing and we may disagree, people disagree and thats called democracy. Im often asked about what President Trump said yesterday, its hard to answer because it will be different tomorrow. Very often factually what he says is not correct. When you talk about human rights it is important that you do nott allow the normalization of a situation in which a president basically says that all of the media in this country, the a lot of them, believe me i have problems with the media, but it suggests that all of the media are provided fake news and really the only person in america, the only source of information that we can get a trust comes from the tweets of President Trump. How crazy is that . The native attacks on the judiciary, the socalled judgesa who disagree with the decision, thank god they rolled against some of his executive orders. Then you have him with the positive relationship with mr. Putin has moved his country into an authoritarian direction, as well as other Global Leaders who do not particularly believe in democracy. That is where i see us today. How do you both explain the rise of authoritarianism . Where is this coming from . I think the root of it is something ive not heard discussed asmemese much. In 1999 of the beginning of 2000 asked to make speeches in norway and taiwan. My subject was what is the greatest challenge of the next century . And i said the disparity between rich people and poor people. The i think it is between people and nations. The root of a downturn in human rights preceded 2016. It began earlier. Th i think the reason was the disparity in income which has been translated into the average person, decent, hardworking, middleclass people feeling they are getting cheated by the government and by society. They dont get the same elements of healthcare. They dont get the same quality education. They dont get the same political rights, particularly after the stupid decision of the Supreme Court on citizens a united. Campaig an unlimited amount of money coming into campaigns. Now, they feel in politics the choice of our candidate to be president , governor congressman is not the same as a rich gersons. Also, once the candidate gets in office, if successful, quite often the average person feels their repair and their contributions with legal bribery. The Justice System is also going down. Long before we had this last election. What i left the white house one out of 1000 people were imprisoned. Now, seven out of 1000 are in prison. Seven times as many. So the feeling of that average person ought to be treated fairly by the Justice System is missing. , income basic human rights, income, status in society,s healthcare, education, participation ine politics, justice, the things we used to have complete faith has been distorted by the riche people getting richer and the poor getting poorer. And when the rich get a candidate in office they can bee sure tax loss are going to keep them getting richer but the average person suffers. Of i think that dissatisfaction with the existing system ofsultn politics resulted in the outcome of the election. People unwilling to take aw. Chance and what we do about it is basic principles and find something new. One of our participation said market fundamentalism is the driving force behind this. What do you think senator sanders . I agree with everything the president carter said. Heres the situation, you got, all over this country, tens of millions of people who areoi extremely angry and disappointed. We all know as a result of technology, workers are producing more today than they did 20 or 30 years ago. T yet, despite that you are seein people working now 40 hours a week, 50 or 60 hours per week. Their wages are going down. How would you feel if you are 50yearold man or Woman Working in a factory and he went to work one day and someone said, a company can work more money by going to china, good luck to you. You go out and get a job at have to wages. How do you feel is apparent when you know your kid who you love so much and you want Better Things then you had, thusa american thin dream, your kid ct go to college and find a home for himself or herself. Maybe they leave school with 80000 in debt. President carters right, ifar youre going to look at human rights you have to look at the term i use is the growth of oligarchy in america. What that means and the president touched on that, its not just the unbelievablysq grotesque level of income and wealth inequality. One family in america owns more wealth than the bottom 42 , et e cetera. But, these guys are not putting their money into their mattress, theyre using it politically. We live in a country where people fundi for democracy. And then you have people in a handful of billionaires able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to elect candidates who represent the wealthy and powerful. Las this recent bill, everybodys familiar with the terrible bill passed last thursday in the house. E the media describes it as a healthcare bill. Its not healthcare bill. Its a bill designed to give you 300 million in tax breaks to the top 2 and hundreds of billions to the insurance companies. The rich get richer, they pu protect themselves and get tax breaks. The middle class shrinks. Some people in this country live in desperate poverty. In the midst of all of the committee of summit comes along and says you know the source of your problem is . The muslim over there, you are supposed to hate that person. I think that has a lot to do in this country and internationally. Abets another senator sanders agree with me. I feel much more sure about what i said. [laughter] thing is how does it affect other countries. Of course, the rise of the liberal orthodoxy that we have lived within for how many decades now that we have been told the rising tide would lift all boats, has failed. So, how do we, and we had many testimonies today about this problem, from the congo, the pakistan, everywhere. As the United States exerts influence in the world and we take a broader view of human rights, these are interlinked. We see just as youre describing the police are expanding their powers. When people protest we have increasing prison populations, we please using military equipment to control the protests. St. We have our Atlanta Leader of the black lives later movementes here. We see standing rock, ruthanne buffaloes here, there is a rising movement, but they interlinked. When the policies we people behind the people rise up we heard today from india heartbreaking testimony that in the last two or three years when we think of india as a great democracy, that is going away. We see the linkages between it. How can we use our influence in the world this question is for you both. President , carter you put human rights at the center. It was the cold war and not easy to do that. Ts senator sanders, you have one of a hundred seats were theres only power left in this countrys but how do we get the United States to face its own problem and then become a leader again . Look, this is what i think the bottom line is that i do not think the real change that we need is going to take place in the u. S. Senate are inwashin washington. Ce its going to take place and what are very brave guests are doing all over the world. It will take place at the Grassroots Level from one end of this country to the other. [applause] and what i mean by that is i have said many times, i dont want to get into intricacies, in many ways donald trump did not win the election, the Democratic Party lost the election. We have to revitalize the Democratic Party, bring together black workers, white workers, native american and latino workers, think we can do that. Ive spent a lot of time recently not going just to blue states were going to conservative states. If you go to states like kansas or nebraska which are all both very strongly republican states and u. S. People, do you believe it makes sense to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut back on such scared, medicaid people look at you like yourere crazy. Our job is to go into 50 straights in this country to bring people around of Progressive Agenda which has the courage to do it democrats historically have not had a rippin to do. They are all the fossil fuel industry, these are the people who are ripping us off and people donating to candidatesidl represent their interests and not the interests of the middle class of this country. We have the lowest voter turnout on earth, some of you have noticed a few weeks ago and the french election, most 80 of the french people voted. If we had 80 of the people voting in this country the Republican Party would be a significant minority. We have got to get people involved. You do that by being honest about the real problems they face in coming up with real solutions. Kinney see why voted for him . I think what we need to discuss is the trend downward and the things in which we have faith. In which we can depend these have faith in democracy, faith in the truth, we used to have faith in our fellow human citizens and in our public o officials. But we basically lost that element of faith, my High School Teacher said we must accommodate changing times but we must cling to principles that never change. One of those principles is the truth. And freedom they won his freedom of speech, and others freedom of religion, two were negative, freedom from want and freedom from fear. T and fr and i think now the lack of freedoms to combat want because of the disparity in income i pointed out which is getting worse every year and also freedom from fear. We still have a long way to go. In some cases we still have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but sometimes its constrained. Es can a but we still have that obstacle to overcome. One thing we need to overcome this see how this small group of courageous human right heroes can add their contribution of thought and experiences together and form a tight coalition theph small group unexpanded tohe sen washington and some of you will go up there to meet with members of the senate and house and maybe some parts of the administration. But never give up. United together, be champions of human rights and freedom and the lack of fear and want our voice can be expanded on a global basis. D this tiny drop of people compared to the rest of the world can have a great influen influence. President carter just openedd the door to not lay you off the hook so easily. R we have a Peoples Movement for sure but you have a huge platform for which you can speak, we heard today from russia about the danger of silence. We have to speak about what is going on around the world, we have to give voice and highlight this regression that is happening globally in our own country. I know there are members of the senate, euro colleagues who are looking at ways the senate, after vietnam we have the church committee, we made important reforms, i realize its an uphill battle with thiscan we administration but we have to think ahead, can we reliant the leahy amendment to challenge military assistance. This is something the United States could do those of us who believe in those are a minority but those of us even though we may be in a minority our voices have to be loud and clear thend United States should not be funding military dictatorships around the world are giving support to leaders who torture and imprison thousands of theiro people. It is very sad in the present at this point. There was once a time in our lifetime, not 200 years ago when people thought about the United States, this is a country of freedom, country of opportunity, this is the country in the world that believes in truth. Y, ver it is very sad to see the values that we once respected for all over the world are now being diminished. In th. Small group of us will be in washington later this week meeting with a few senators. We will be seeing senator corker. Bob corker. Moderator has. Chairman of the Foreign Relations committee. Moderator we know it is an uphill battle. Aboutear we talked a lot diverting the resources from the machinery of war into the machinery of peace. It into the machinery of human rights do you see any opportunities that we can raise we know theres a new budget coming up and the president has asked for an increase in military expenditures and is there any chance for the people to be heard, to question that . The answer is of course. If you think about what needs to be done then look at the trumpet budget and its exactly the opposite of where we should be going. In other words, can you imagine when we need to focus on diplomacy, at a time when the poor people all over the world must know or should know that the United States is their ally, that we are there to help them with food, that we are there to help them with education and new technology, we are there allies what President Trump wants to do is to reduce foreige aid substantially reduce the staffing in the state department but at 80 billion more to the military on top of already a very, very bloated military budget and domestically having done that, he wants to take that money, that 80 billion that hen spending on the military by cutting head start, pell grants, the wic program, program for low income pregnant women andn. Children, cutting the meals on Wheels Program which provides nutritious meals to low income seniors, in other words, doing exactly the opposite. Our job, right now, and im working on it 247 is to go around this country and tell the American People are those your priorities. D more money for the defense, already were spending more than the 12 nations and theres a tremendous waste within the department of defense. We need more when cutting domestic programs . Two we need not be supporting poor people around the world . Rather than leaving them pray to terrorist ideologies. Senator carter we talked about the Nuclear Weapons a newo generation, is this trillion dollars that were about to spend a wise use of resources . Of course not. I do not well, i dont think theres any way for anyone even in your own personal mind to separate piece from human rights. Because one of the basic elements of peace from of human rights is to be living at peace and only then can you have the other human rights like freedom of speech and religion and also a chance to have an income and education and healthcare and house to live in, things of that kind. When war comes the abuses oft human rights, which we all know about and for which we fought for the last three years, that becomes much more serious. Every human right that we talked about and is listed in the principles of human rights arere exacerbated or made worse under the cloud of war when a nation decides to go to war, they basically drop any feeling of love or absence of hatred or o version of killing and the United States has been at war almost fulltime since the second world war. Weve been at war now