A ballotharvesting operation . Absolutely not. And his president ial campaign is two days old and already breaking fundraising records. My exclusive interview with Bernie Sanders. All in starts right now. Good evening from los angeles. Im chris hayes and its another absolutely insane news day. Indicted trump ally roger stone has been hit with a strict gag order by the judge in his case after he posted her picture online alongside an image of crosshairs. A new Congressional Election was called in North Carolina after an elections Board Hearing on flagrant Election Fraud to boost the republican candidate. Theres been a string of reports the Mueller Probe may be poised to wrap up any day as longtime trump fixer Michael Cohen prepares to testify three times before Congress Next week. And democrats are taking their first concrete legislative steps to block the president s National Emergency declaration at the border with a resolution to terminate his effort to circumvent congress to build the wall mexico was supposed to pay for. And then theres all the action in the race to take on trump in 2020. A new Time Magazine cover depicting trump looking back over his shoulder as a crowded field of declared and potential candidates eyes the oval office. Two days ago a major candidate formally entered the race, promptly raised nearly 6 million in just 24 hours. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, the runnerup for the democratic nomination last time around, declaring the time had come to complete the revolution and make his vision a reality. Joining me now for his first primetime interview since declaring his candidacy, vermont independent senator Bernie Sanders. Senator, let me just start with the Emergency Declaration since thats in the news today. Chuck schumer says the senates going to introduce a resolution as well to pair with the house. Do you support that resolution . Of course i do. What the president is doing is unconstitutional, illegal and part of his Movement Towards an authoritarian society. This guy clearly is not familiar with the constitution, clearly not familiar with the separation of powers. He thinks hes got it all, hes the only one running the government. And that has got to stop. You ran for president in 2016. It was a long race, it was a hardfought race. Its a very different world two years later for a lot of reasons. Theres probably a dozen or so candidates or more who will be in the race. The issue platforms have changed quite a bit. Theres several candidates that have endorsed medicare for all or free college which are issues you had championed. Why did you take a look at this race this time and say i have to run again . I think for a couple reasons, chris. First of all, im proud of what we accomplished in 2016 and im proud that we changed the political discourse in this country. That ideas that today are widely accepted are part of the mainstream, are being supported by many democratic candidates. If you will recall, three years ago while these ideas were considered to be radical and extreme and in fringe and fringe ideas. We have come a long way i think in transforming the Democratic Party and making it into a more progressive party. Second of all, part of the Political Revolution was to mobilize millions of people at the grassroots level. And what im very proud of in terms of what we have accomplished in the last two days, the media talks about the money. Thats great. But we now have close to 1 Million People who have signed up, who want to be involved in an unprecedented campaign. And why thats important is that i believe from the bottom of my heart that if you learn from the civil rights movement, from the trade union movement, from the womens movement, from the gay movement, you know that real change in this country never occurs unless millions of people are standing up and fighting back. So if were going to pass medicare for all, we need to mobilize millions of people to stand up to the Insurance Companies and the drug companies. Thats what this campaign is about. I want to ask another question about this campaign versus last campaign because obviously that was a very hardfought primary. It went on for a very long time. It was compete in a way i think some people didnt expect at the beginning of it. And if youre going to win this time there are people who voted for Hillary Clinton the last time around whose votes you will need this time in a democratic primary. And theres stilling some bad blood. Theres still folks i talk to who exist in the political world who are loyal democrats who feel frustrated by what they felt was your lack of loyalty to the party or your support of Hillary Clinton or extending the primary too long. And my question to you is what is the message for those folks out there who may still have sore feelings about that . I do understand that, chris. But lets get the facts correct. After i endorsed Hillary Clinton, i went all over this country and i worked as hard as i could to see that she was elected. And i think we should get that clear. I think the main point to be made is that where we are right now is that many of the major issues that i have been talking about for years are now widely supported by the American People. And what we have got to do is take trumps desire to divide us up by the color of our skin or where we were born or our Sexual Orientation or our agenda. We have got to bring our people together around a Progressive Agenda. Health care is a human right. Were going to raise that minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour. Were going to in a highly competitive Global Economy make public colleges and universities tuition free and lower student dect. We are going to address the existential crisis of climate change, transform our energy system, and create millions of jobs in the process. Criminal justice reform, immigration reform. Those ideas are now ideas that the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party believe in and we got to bring people together around that agenda. One more question about 2016 and about your campaign because you were mayor of burlington, vermont. So you have some executive experience. But that campaign was a large enterprise you were managing. Theres been some complaints, its been well reported, i know you met with some folks from the campaignb the culture and atmosphere in that campaign particularly as it pertains to Sexual Harassment being tolerated, and the diversity of the Senior Leadership of that campaign at a time when the Democratic Party is a Diverse Party being excessively white and male and not having enough voices. Do you take those criticisms to heart or are you doing things differently this time . Absolutely. We take those criticisms to heart. When people said that our campaign was too white, too male oriented, they are right. You take a look at the staff that we are putting together right now. Take a look at who our national cochairs are. You will see a fundamental difference in the way our campaign is operating. In terms of the issue of Sexual Harassment, that has troubled me immensely and we are putting together a protocol now which will be stronger than any campaign has ever put together so that we prevent any of the problems we saw in 2016. You just talked about a lot of issues that are issues you feel passionately about that you campaigned about. Medicare for all, climate, the new green deal, criminal justice reform. But prioritization seems a key question in this primary. Its a question ive had every candidate weve had on. What is your first youre inaugurated by an electoral miracle or a lot of hard work. The democrats have a majority of the senate and the house. Whats your first piece of Domestic Legislation that you move . I dont look at it that way, chris. What he i look at is looking at a 100day period and pushing forward that Progressive Agenda. Weve got to raise that minimum wage to a living wage. We have to pass medicare for all. We have to transform our energy system. So i dont see it as one piece of legislation. We have enormous crises in this country. In terms of income and wealth inequality. In terms of millions of People Living in poverty. In terms of a shrinking middle class. Its not just one issue. We need a Progressive Agenda. Thats what ive been campaigning on. Let me stop you. Youre a United States senator who knows your way around the legislative process and you know how important Political Capital and sequencing are and prioritization. We know parties come in and they have priorities and those priorities when they come in first those bills get the best sort of amount of force behind them and then you go later through the administration and they get less and less. Thats just the facts of how things work. Well, i think youre looking at the past. Youre not looking at i think what life would be like if im going to be elected president of the United States. Theres going to be a sense of urgency. Were not going to do things the same old way. We have major crises in this country. And especially after four years of the disaster of what will be the disaster of trump if he lasts four years, were going to have to move rapidly in addressing issue after issue after issue. And let me mention some other issues i think have not been talked about. We have to pay more attention to rural america. Life expectancy going down. Opioid epidemic. Young people leaving their communities. We have to pay more attention to rural communities. We have to Pay Attention to the impact of Artificial Intelligence and robotics is having on our society and driving people out of the jobs theyve had for years. There is an enormous amount of work to be done. We start were going to need a president and a congress to focus on issue after issue to transform the economic and political life of this country. Weve talked a lot about domestic issues and youve been fairly active on some Foreign Policy issues, particularly on yemen where youve worked with some senators across the aisle on the war powers resolution, which was successful in the last congress and might come up again. And theres been reporting about sort of your Foreign Policy staff being filled out more. I wonder like, is there a sanders doctrine . Is there a way that you view American Leadership and Foreign Policy were you to become president . In 30 seconds or less, right . Exactly. Well, 15. Ive got to get to some other stuff. All right. Youve got a president today who supports literally, literally supports authoritarian regimes all over the world, who supports governments run by kleptocrates who are billionaires. My vision of American Leadership in the world is leadership which supports democracy, supports human rights, supports the entire world coming together to address the planetary crisis of climate change. People all over the world saying you know, what it affects china, it affects india, it affects the United States. Weve got to work together. I see a world beginning to address massive global incoming wealth and equality, where today you have a few hundred people. Own more wealth than the bottom half of the worlds population. I see us addressing the problems of global poverty. I see us being the country where the rest of the world looks to the United States and says thank you, america, for supporting human rights, democracy, and economic justice. I want to ask you about socialism. Theres an email that went out i think in the last few days from the Trump Campaign which of course is already up and running. Its a fundraising email. It says Bernie Sanders announced he will be running for president in 2020 with a very simple platform, fullblown socialism. Not partial socialism. Fullblown socialism. Youve called yourself a socialist for years. Its been a question on the campaign trail. Other candidates have said theyre not socialists, theyre capitalists. But theres this debate that has ensued about what does that mean. A lot of conservatives have pointed to venezuela and said food shortages, increasing authoritarianism is what Socialism Means and its what Bernie Sanders wants. What is your definition of socialism . Whats your model for it . I think that when we look at a modern democratic Civilized Society youre looking at economic rights in addition to political freedoms. So right now we have a constitution, you have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, et cetera. I happen to believe that in the year 2019 with all of the wealth around us we can create an economy which guarantees health care to all people as a human right, which guarantees education from child care to Higher Education as a human right, which guarantees the right of people to have decent and affordable housing, which makes sure youre living in a community where the water that you are drinking and the air you are breathing is clean. Economic rights as human rights. And by the way, chris thats my question. What youre describing is the mixed economy. Theres a National Health service in the uk. There are the United States of public housing. We have public provision of those goods. Is there something over and above that distinguishes your vision from a kind of welfare state mixed economy . Well, i should also add that in 1944 this is exactly what Franklin Delano roosevelt talked about. He talked about jobs and health care and education as a human right to be guaranteed by the government. And what im talking about exists in many countries all over the world. You go to countries in scann scandinav scandinavia, College Education is free. Every other major country on earth guarantees health care to all people as a right. Most countries have higher minimum wages than we do. So essentially what we are talking about is making sure that a vibrant democracy guarantees that all of our people can have a decent standard of living and that we do not have this grotesque level of income and wealth inequality where three people end up more than half of the country where a handful of billionaires can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy elections. Thats what the Political Revolution is about. Thats what democratic Socialism Means to me. Let me return to the venezuela case because it has been so used by conservatives in the u. S. On exactly this. Youve been critical of the maduro regime. I think also critical of some of the steps taken by the Trump Administration sort of ratcheting up pressure. But what is the Bernie Sanders theory of the case for why venezuela is the way it is . What went wrong there in what was an avowedly socialist project . Well, thats a long story that i dont think we have the time to get into. But this is what i will say, and that is that i think there must be free and Fair Elections in venezuela. The last elections were not free. Second of all, we have to do all we can to provide humanitarian aid to other countries so the people do not starve to death. And thirdly, we need to make certain that the United States does not do what it has done time and time again in our history and that is get involved in overthrowing governments in latin america. We did that in chile. We did that in brazil, guatemala, other countries. We should not be doing that now. The future of venezuela must rest with the venezuelan people, not the trust administration. You spoke before about a Political Revolution, talked about an ambitious 100day agenda. One of the bottlenecks for all of that right now is the house of congress you call your own, the United States senate, it has a filibuster, which as we know from the history increased rapidly in its deployment. Its essentially used as a 60vote threshold for almost anything other than reconciliation in budgeting. Some people have come out in favor of abolishing the filibuster. Do you favor abolishing the filibuster . Well, one of those people is donald trump. So i think we should be thoughtful and clear about this is what trump would like to see. Before we get into that, which is a very legitimate question, we need to, a, make sure the democrats control the United States senate, which is not guaranteed by any means. No, its not. And second of all, its not good enoug