The progressives. Then i thought he said i more than one occasion, hold me accountable. So i think it is fair as we near the end of his presidency to hold him accountable. How long would that been . About a year and a half. That is a long story. I measure that sure that we have time for that story. During that time bernie and i never talked about barack obama or any other disappointment and brock obama. Im not sure where youre going but i wanted to make that clear. The reason i did is because i was a member of the White House Press corps, i had a standing white house pass, went to the briefings every day. I needed them for my own program and i could ask questions. So i thought i could expand that opportunity by getting a press press credential at the United States capital. I applied for a press at the United States capital and i was told i had to appear before the full Senate ReportersAccreditation Committee. There were were questions about whether or not i qualified and i was told because i gave my opinion, first i was turned down because i gave my opinion on my show. Im a talk show host, of course i give my opinion. I pointed out that there are others in the press corps already who, i thought should be disqualified. So give me a hearing in front of the full Accreditation Committee the vote was 12 1 against me. Al jazeera voted against me, fox news of voted against me. I had one vote and it was from cspan, i am proud to say. Cspan is that right . Guest thats right. At that point somebody told me they had heard, they suggest, forget now what was, that i should apply for an interim position. So i called michael briggs, senator sanders press secretary now his campaign secretary, and i said i might want to talk to him about that. We talked, he suggested it to the senator, i went over and met with the senator and he hired me as his intern. So i had more access, it was a way of getting back at the senate credentialing committee and the reporters there. I had more access than they did with my intern pass. So so are you still in intern . Guest no, i did it for year. Cspan how well do you know Bernie Sanders when youre in intern . Guest i did not at all. I had had lunch with him once, this is another long story. Im a radio talkshow host, and we have had a lot of trouble with stations dropping progressive radio, not enough stations in the station running progressive are willing to take on progressive radio as part of the program. We thought the fcc, the federal Communications Commission ought to put pressures on stations to have a variety variety of voices and a variety of opinions. So there is just a couple of senators are willing to take that on. Byron dorgan from north dakota was one, Bernie Sanders was another. So i met him with another group of radio talkshow host and that was the only way i knew him. Then i got a call from his office saying that the senator wanted to have lunch with me. So i came over. That was the only time, the first time i saw him oneonone and we went to lunch in the Senate Dining room which was also very funny because it was the first time senator sanders had ever been in the Senate Dining room. He is is not part of the crowd, right. So he went over to the senate and the subway and the Senate Office building and we went up to whatever floor was and we got off the elevator and pretty said to me do you know where the dining rooms . And we had to stop and ask a Police Officer with a dining room was. We walked in walked in the dining room and the maltre d in charge of the Senate Dining room did not recognize senator sanders. He had never seen him before. Cspan the reason i ask you this, you know theres a controversy over the fact that on the back of the book this is all about progressives do not like barack obama. They make the case that while long off dirt take it out of office the United States must keep rattling the people who elected him or her on the have a progressive causes. That is the only way real change happens, read this book. And i think i have seen you watching television and and does that mean he doesnt like barack obama. So why did he endorse your book . Guest the question was asked of the press and it was asked on this week at the george stephanopoulos, it was asked by Anderson Cooper in a cnn town hall and, first of all he said the blurb does not endorse the book. The blurb really repeats a point that he makes an every Campaign Speech which is twofold. One, we need a Political Revolution, and thats his race. A Political Revolution means that the progressives have to really keep the pressure on the next president whom we hope will be a democrat and a progressive, bernie or hillary, to really be true to the Progressive Agenda followthrough is not copyrighted away. And that the president he says here has a duty, to rally the progressives to keep the pressure on him. Which is again why i think the timing of this book is very important. I think we are on the cusp of a progressive revolution. I consider both bernie and hillary both progressives. One of them is going to be the next president , i believe. Now is a good time to take stock and say how would this guy do that we thought was a real progressive. How would you do and what can we learn from that experience as we move to the next administration. And maybe get a better delivery. Cspan you call president obama in your book, hamlet like. Guest yes. I like meaning. A hard time making a decision on some issues. Taking may be too much time. It is a both a blessing and a curse i think. Marie dowd headed good phrase and we went from george w. Bush to barack obama we went from mindless certainty to mindful uncertainty. So maybe somewhere in between is where you want to be. For for example, when syria used chemical weapons and president obama had said, we are not going to intervene and we are not going to use military forces, we are not going to send in troops, whatever. Unless he uses chemical weapons, that is the red line. He said it and later, i was there. And when they did, then it was just a guinea, or should, or should we do this or not. To be or not to be. I think it diminished the power of his decision when he finally mac and then doing it because he made the still the russians. It was the same thing with the president was deciding whether or not to send more troops to the socalled surge back into iraq toward the end of the conflict. I was sitting every day in the Briefing Room and it went from were going to do, were not going to do it, were going to spend this money or maybe this many. It was just egg and he of making a decision. This is why use the phrase hammer like. Cspan do you endorse Bernie Sanders . Guest yes. Nothing against. Cspan Bernie Sanders is saying we are going to pay for all of your College Education and all of that. Where we are going to get money for this is were going to tax the rich. Tax the 1 . Cspan he doesnt say that x. Guest he doesnt say that exclusively. Cspan nobody talked about the fact that the minute he is the president of the United States and proposes that tax that it has to go to kevin bradys committee, the ways and Means Committee and the house of representatives. He is a conservative republican a conservative republican from texas who has a tremendous amount of power to move that are not move that. Why why would you expect Bernie Sanders to be able to move that went barack obama could not move it in the same world . Guest i think that has to deal with the revolution. I think thats what bernies same. If American People really want to change and i think they do, i think Bernie Sanders and donald trump are both tapped into something very, very real. That the political establishment and the Media Establishment missed. I know the latest talking point of the Clinton Campaign is old burning is just angry and you dont get anywhere by being angry. I think he is not so much angry is determined. But the American People are angry. They are angry that they have been left out and left behind in the system is rigged against them. It them. It has been that way for like 40 some years and nobody has done anything about it. What burning is saying is that he recognizes it, hes a realist. Hes been in the house for 16 years in the senate for 17, he recognizes the difficulties in if that is his agenda and he can rally the American People to turn out and elect people who will go along with him or to put pressure on the others to say that we have to write to this ship. We have to get it done. Bernie is also honest about with the middle class to pay for universal healthcare. Cspan how many years have you in washington . Guest since 1996. Cspan how many years have you have your daily talkshow . Guest ten years. Cspan working people listen to it . Guest people can listen to it on any progressive talk radio country in station in the country if theyre lucky enough to have them. There may be 50 total left in the entire country. They can listen to it online, bill press show. Com. We stream the show very everyday. With podcast they can tune in, it is live is 6 9 00 a. M. That is east coast time. But people on the west coast if theyre not up that early they can catch it later by going to the bill press show that, and the they can pick up part of the show, one interview they want to listen to or the entire three hours. The by the, in the archives they can go back, you can go back as long as we have been podcasting. At at least a couple of years and listen to july 13, 2015 if you wanted to, for wanted to, for whatever reason. Cspan you are older than Bernie Sanders. Guest by one year. Guest i would u. S. That . Guest why would you ask that cspan why do you get up at 4 00 a. M. To do is exam show, why do do you stay up late at night to do all it late show a man like you should be retired, what is the motivation . Guest i love it. I think think i have the best job in the world and that ever since high school and i talk about that in the book, ever since been on the High School Debate team i have loved debating the issues and studying the issues. I love writing about them are talking them on the radio or tv. My entire media media career was started in 1980 and it has been as a commentator. Never worked as a reporter anchor, did not want to work as an anchor. I auditioned once as an anchor and i realize just by the addition that i did not want that job. I did not want to report the news, want want to talk about what it meant. So i get to give my opinions and i get paid for it. So i enjoyed. When i stop having fun and stop enjoying it i will stop doing it. Cspan so you write it column in the hill or give speeches around the country,. Guest on cnns newest and oldest contributor. Cspan let me go to some video. This is a way for you to talk about what you think about barack obama in this book. We are going to go way back to august 1, 2007. Here is the president. I will provide intelligence and lawenforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorist without undermining our constitution and our freedom. That means no more illegal wiretapping of american citizens. No more National Security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more track and citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignore the law when it is inconvenient. Cspan he was running kind of then, with how long he looks, no gray hair. Just amazing. Guest no gray hair and just he just looks older today. I guess we all do. My reaction is a promise may, promise broken. The National SecurityNational Security area is one area where progressives have the highest hopes and have their hopes dashed the most. Almost everything the president mentioned there he either failed to do or did just the opposite. The fact is, on these issues there is like no difference between george w. Bush, dick cheney, and brock obama. We expected, that we expected, that was one area, and he promised there is that this was one area he would stop these practices to the nsa with spying on americans, with going after whistleblowers are going after journalists and protecting a privacy. He did not do it. As i mentioned in the book, he was, as a senator one of the most outspoken critics of the nsa. He he and senator ron wyden from oregon were the two who introduce legislation, gave saying that we can have people spine, the first time senator ron wyden went to see his culligan buddy he was stunned to find out that the president , now is president barack obama was on the exact opposite side. Basically saying we have to let the nsa do their thing. It is the old needle in the haystack theory which i think is bogus. The haystack get so big that you will never find the needle. President obama has allowed the nsa to expand their eavesdropping on u. S. Citizens. Every single phone call may, domestic and foreign. Foreign. Allow them to spy also on our emails. Still massing all this data and storing all of this data. Somewhere either either phone companies have to the government has a. So it is on and on. Maybe well talk about this too, but in terms of journalists, this administration went after the new york times, went after fox news, when after Associated Press. Actually tapped the phones of Associated Press reporters who were doing nothing then doing their job. Susan page from usa today, a very, very well respected journalist here in washington, said this is the most dangerous administration, ever. Cspan here is march 4, 2008, still running for president. We are going to have the doctors, the nurses, the members of congress, the patient advocates, and also have the insurance and Drug Companies at the table but they will not be able to buy every chair. I want input will make compromises. For going to do these negotiations on cspan so the American People will be able to watch these negotiations. Openness, transparency, you will hold me accountable, will hold congress accountable, that is how we are going to get Health Care Reform passed. Guest hold me accountable, i just did come in the book. Cspan what took so long . Guest i think it just because it took time. I didnt deliberately say i would wait until your number eight. I talk in the book about that promise. These negotiations are going to be held on cspan, they were not. Theyre held behind closed doors. There are many cases that in fact the Insurance Companies and the pharmaceutical companies did buy every chair at the table. Obama care is his signature legislative achievement. It is one of the good things that he has done, it just doesnt go far enough. What really ends up is, again as close to universal healthcare as we have ever had, but there are still 30 million americans who do not have Health Insurance. According to this office of management and budget may never have Health Insurance under this plan. The pharmaceutical companies, we still cannot negotiate with them for medicare, to get lower cost of drugs. We. We still cannot import drugs from canada legally. The Insurance Companies, this is their big payday. Every single american is required to buy insurance from a private insurance company. There is no other product, they dont have to buy a car. They dont have to buy house. They dont have to buy socks or underwear. You have to buy Health Insurance. Cspan let me quote from your book. Talking your book. Talking about a man named billy close and. Who was a democratic congressman and became a republican in congressman and then headed up big pharma. The same ad barack obama had once personally said was the up enemy of everything that was wrong with washington, he did what . Guest he cut a deal with billy toes and. That if they did some advertising on behalf or in the post of obama care that they would let them off the hook for the price of drugs. So this is basically a pack that he made. Cspan here is a short, 142nd clip. Guest can i just say one other thing about obama care before you move on. The other thing is the president i think recognize there was a real problem with this and that it was making us to dependent on private Insurance Companies. So he came up with an idea called the public plan option which is basically medicare for everybody. He went around the country, convinced me and americans that this was a way that were going to have a public plan option so you dont have to buy private insurance. You can grow in medicare at any age. That would provide competition to the private Insurance Companies and lower costs. It was necessary for both competition and lower costs. In the suddenly suddenly he dropped the public plan. Never brought it to a vote, was not part of the bill. Why . Cspan would you agree Bernie Sanders was elected president he would not be do this is the either . Guest i dont agree with that. Bernie sanders would have at least fought for and so what of Lyndon Johnson and fdr, barack obama did not. There are too ma