This New York Daily News interview was pretty close to a disaster for Bernie Sanders-HRC ROOM

[hrmjustin]

Chris Cillizza

Bernie Sanders sat down with the New York Daily News editorial board on Monday, seeking their endorsement in the upcoming April 19 Empire State primary. It did not go well for the Vermont Senator.

Time and again, when pressed to get beyond his rhetoric on the evils of corporate America and Wall Street, Sanders struggled. Often mightily. (The Daily News published the full transcript of the interview so you can check it out for yourself.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/05/this-new-york-daily-news-interview-was-pretty-close-to-a-disaster-for-bernie-sanders/?postshare=421459880180552&tid=ss_tw

[MADem]

1. I can't believe he has been on the Hill for a quarter century. nt

[livetohike]

17. Neither can anyone else. He has such an unremarkable career that my mother and mother in law

both in their late 80's and still interested in politics had to ask me who he was and where did he come from!! Twenty five years of only knowing one song. What a waste of tax payer money.

[dcbuckeye]

2. WOW!!!!!!!!

All I can say is WOW!!! The real Bernie is revealed.

[brush]

3. That was not good for Bernie.

Many of his answers suggest he does not have a clue as to how to institute his promises besides his supporters have to pressure their representatives.

My mouth dropped open. That's getting into pie-in-the-sky territory.

It's New York, you gotta have you stuff together when dealing with the New York press. Newspaper journalist are actually journalists, unlike the no-follow-up talking heads so often seen on TV.

They didn't let him off the hook at all with his vague responses. They kept following up.

Millions in New York still read newspapers on their morning subway, Metro North, Path train and bus commutes. And the Daily News is one of the papers they read.

Doesn't bode well for Sanders in the primary.

[stopbush]

4. Bernie = just another empty suit with a script.

How anyone can still support this guy is a mystery.

[otohara]

5. He Embarrassed Himself

[cosmicone]

6. In neurological terms, it is called "perseveration" n/t

[CalvinballPro]

7. What's bad is not that Sanders has no answers. It's that he clearly

hasn't even bothered trying to come up with any. Idk, did he think he'd be excused from the question-and-answer portions of the primary? It's like not having a concession speech in Nevada; how can he be this unprepared? For the Presidency no less!

[mcar]

8. And let's all remember that Cillizza detests HRC

So this is no hit piece on Sanders.

[DURHAM D]

10. True, he hates both Clintons. nt

[spooky3]

36. That is true--he has frequently been criticized for this.

[DURHAM D]

9. Just another lightweight.

Usually they occupy the other side of the aisle but not this one.

He is a just another garden variety policy grifter.

[NurseJackie]

11. Wow! That is very revealing...

... and Chris hates Hillary.

[book_worm]

12. Daily News hates HRC and will endorse Bernie anyway.

[brush]

13. I doubt it after that interview

[geek tragedy]

22. Doubt it. They were looking for specifics and were really unimpressed.

They'll endorse Clinton and Kasich.

[liberal N proud]

14. How do you ride the subway - from the interview

The funniest bit:


























Daily News: I know you've got to go in a second. When was the last time you rode the subway? Are you gonna a campaign in the subway?

Sanders: Actually we rode the subway, Mike, when we were here? About a year ago? But I know how to ride the subways. I’ve been on them once or twice.

Daily News: Do you really? Do you really? How do you ride the subway today?

Sanders: What do you mean, "How do you ride the subway?"

Daily News: How do you get on the subway today?

Sanders: You get a token and you get in.

Daily News: Wrong.

Sanders: You jump over the turnstile.

Have a great day.


http://www.motherjones.com/contributor/2016/04/will-new-york-choo-choo-choose-bernie-sanders

[athena]

15. That was my favorite part.

He actually lied about taking the subway. He lied. Why couldn't he have just been honest and said it's been a long time since he's taken the subway but that he believes in funding public transportation? GD-P would have been all over this if it had been Hillary saying this, and not Bernie.

[brush]

16. Tokens are long gone, Bernie.

[sarae]

39. tokens?!

HAHA, I thought Saint Sanders never lies?

[livetohike]

18. When he doesn't know what to say he gives a smart ass retort. I can't stand this man. He is no where

close to being Presidential material. Wonder who told him he was?

[KittyWampus]

27. Bill Press. The earliest mention I find are two meetings at Bill Press's house.

[livetohike]

31. Interesting. I'm sure Ed Schultz was in on it

as well. Thanks for looking for that .

[UtahLib]

19. Very illuminating, BS. eom

[SunSeeker]

20. Bernie is losing it. Why lie about riding the subway? nt

[sarae]

40. yep...

I think Hillary's making him nervous...

[Gothmog]

21. How Much Does Bernie Sanders Know About Policy?

Sanders is not clear on policy. He is good at sound bytes but cannot explain how to be break up the big banks
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/bernie-sanderss-rough-ride-with-the-daily-news/476919/

It’s striking that there hasn’t been more coverage of Sanders’s policy ideas so far during the campaign, even at this late date, with most of the primary season concluded. He’s even acquired a reputation as something of a wonk, the kind of guy who eschews soaring rhetoric for dry nuts and bolts on the stump—and gets people to love him anyway. The gaps uncovered by the Daily News are not just about pragmatism. (There have, of course, been plenty of accusations, not least from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, that Sanders is offering a deeply unrealistic program. He tends to answer that they fail to grasp that he is building a political revolution.) The question here is not how Sanders would enact policies, but what those policies would be. If the Sanders campaign has shied away from deep dives into policy, this interview might be why: The candidate reveals himself as a far defter diagnostician than clinician.

The most glaring example came early in the encounter, during a discussion of the problem of “too big to fail” banks. There is disagreement among economists on the left over how important, if at all, it is to break up large financial institutions. The board granted Sanders’s argument and asked him how he’d do it, producing an excruciating cat-and-mouse game:

Daily News: Okay. Well, let's assume that you're correct on that point. How do you go about doing it?

Sanders: How you go about doing it is having legislation passed, or giving the authority to the secretary of treasury to determine, under Dodd-Frank, that these banks are a danger to the economy over the problem of too-big-to-fail.

Daily News: But do you think that the Fed, now, has that authority?

Sanders: Well, I don't know if the Fed has it. But I think the administration can have it.

Daily News: How? How does a President turn to JPMorgan Chase, or have the Treasury turn to any of those banks and say, "Now you must do X, Y and Z?"

Sanders: Well, you do have authority under the Dodd-Frank legislation to do that, make that determination.

Daily News: You do, just by Federal Reserve fiat, you do?

Sanders: Yeah. Well, I believe you do.

The conversation detoured sideways a bit, as the board asked about what would happen to employees and investors in big banks and Sanders said, not unfairly, that it wasn’t his problem. But then it was back to how to break up the banks, and Sanders still couldn’t offer a coherent answer:

Daily News: Well, it does depend on how you do it, I believe. And, I'm a little bit confused because just a few minutes ago you said the U.S. President would have authority to order...

Sanders: No, I did not say we would order. I did not say that we would order. The President is not a dictator.

Daily News: Okay. You would then leave it to JPMorgan Chase or the others to figure out how to break it, themselves up. I'm not quite...

Sanders: You would determine is that, if a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. And then you have the secretary of treasury and some people who know a lot about this, making that determination. If the determination is that Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan Chase is too big to fail, yes, they will be broken up.

Daily News: Okay. You saw, I guess, what happened with Metropolitan Life. There was an attempt to bring them under the financial regulatory scheme, and the court said no. And what does that presage for your program?

Sanders: It's something I have not studied, honestly, the legal implications of that

.

You do not advocate breaking up the big banks without considering how this will be accomplished

[GusBob]

23. KnR

[wysi]

24. Astonishing

"Sanders: It's something I have not studied, honestly, the legal implications of that"

Who on earth thought it was a good idea for this guy to run?

[William769]

25. Kick & so highly recommended!

[Jackie Wilson Said]

26. I dont agree, and if anything the interview proved that the only way to deal with corporate America

is with legislation.

I know this is the Hillary group and I am a Bernie voter, and the interview was not the high-lite, by any means, of his campaign, but if most of the criticism is around those questions, what other take away is there?

I also note that his comments about Israel will create problems with Israel, but what he said was true and right.

The reason I vote for Bernie over Hillary, is he at least is talking about this stuff in a way that is aggressive, whether he can do anything about it or not remains to be seen.

My biggest concern is the childish Bernie supporters who are not going to support the party if he loses.

[Cha]

29. Too bad you don't agree.. because it was. This is Group is for Hillary Supporters. Thank you.

[SharonClark]

33. It's more than talking about this stuff

It is who can get this stuff done. Many of us who support Hillary can give Sander's stump speech as well as he can. I have no doubt many Sanders supporters have it memorized, too. We need a leader and Sanders has never proven that he can lead.

[madaboutharry]

28. Barney Frank can't stand him.

I have heard him refer to Sanders as an ideologue who doesn't work well with others. He also has said that Sanders has little to show for his many years in the House.

[sarae]

41. well...

there was that post office he named.

[72DejaVu]

30. If that wasn't a disaster

it'll do until a disaster gets here.

[Stevepol]

32. I have to disagree with the assessment of the interview. A "disaster"?

I just finished reading the entire transcript of the interview and I think it's one of the strongest interviews Bernie has had. The interviewer was primed to put as much pressure as possible on Bernie, emphasizing the quixotic nature of his policies, the lack of specificity as to the "how" in the carrying out of his policies, etc., but Bernie came out smelling like a rose in my opinion.

I'm sure everybody will have his/her own opinion, but if I were running Bernie's campaign, I would WANT people to see this interview. If it's available on video, my hope would be that it would be shown on the internet and anywhere else so that it might have the widest possible viewing audience.

[SharonClark]

34. You might want Sanders supporters to read the interview

But the average voters want specifics, not "the quixotic nature of his policies, the lack of specificity as to the "how" in the carrying out of his policies".

[DemonGoddess]

47. That was a strong interview?

REALLY???

The focus of his campaign has been breaking up the banks, yet he has not a CLUE how to go about it.

[Stevepol]

51. Thom Hartmann's impression of the interview agrees pretty well w/ mine.

For one thing, Thom, today (4-6-16) on his program, pointed out that the interviewers were misinformed about the Dodd-Frank Law and some other aspects of their questions.

Here's a press release from the Bernie camp that explains pretty much what Bernie said during the interview with his considerably misinformed interviewers:

LARAMIE, Wyo. — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ spokesman issued the following statement on Tuesday on how the nation’s biggest banks would be broken up under a Sanders administration:

. . .

“Sen. Sanders believes that it is necessary to break up large financial institutions not only because we need to prevent another Wall Street bailout, but because of the incredible concentration of ownership and power that now rest with a handful of these huge institutions. In fact, the six largest financial institutions in this country now have assets equivalent to more than 56 percent of our nation’s GDP, issue two thirds of the credit cards, and one third of the mortgages.

“Electing Sen. Sanders as president would send a clear message to financial regulators that they need to do everything within their power to break up financial institutions so that they can no longer threaten the financial well-being of the American people.

“Here’s how he will accomplish that.

“Within the first 100 days of his administration, Sen. Sanders will require the secretary of the Treasury Department to establish a “Too-Big-to Fail” list of commercial banks, shadow banks and insurance companies whose failure would pose a catastrophic risk to the United States economy without a taxpayer bailout.

“Within a year, the Sanders administration will work with the Federal Reserve and financial regulators to break these institutions up using the authority of Section 121 of the Dodd-Frank Act.

“Sen. Sanders will also fight to enact a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act to clearly separate commercial banking, investment banking and insurance services. Secretary Clinton opposes this extremely important measure.

“President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Glass-Steagall Act into law precisely to prevent Wall Street speculators from causing another Great Depression. And, it worked for more than five decades until Wall Street watered it down under President Reagan and killed it under President Clinton. That is unacceptable and that is why Sen. Sanders will fight to sign the Warren-McCain bill into law.”

[Gothmog]

35. 9 things Bernie Sanders should’ve known about but didn’t in that Daily News interview

Here are some more facts about how poorly informed Sanders is https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/04/05/9-things-bernie-sanders-shouldve-known-about-but-didnt-in-that-daily-news-interview/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Nine moments in the Sanders conversation left me agape. From his own plans for breaking up too-big-to-fail banks to how he would handle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to dealing with the Islamic State, the man giving homegirl Hillary Clinton a run for her money seemed surprisingly out of his depth. The bold in the text is mine for emphasis.

1. Breaking up the banks

Daily News: Okay. Well, let’s assume that you’re correct on that point. How do you go about doing [breaking up the banks]?

Sanders: How you go about doing it is having legislation passed, or giving the authority to the secretary of treasury to determine, under Dodd-Frank, that these banks are a danger to the economy over the problem of too-big-to-fail.

Daily News: But do you think that the Fed, now, has that authority?

Sanders: Well, I don’t know if the Fed has it. But I think the administration can have it.

Daily News: How? How does a President turn to JPMorgan Chase, or have the Treasury turn to any of those banks and say, “Now you must do X, Y and Z?”

Sanders: Well, you do have authority under the Dodd-Frank legislation to do that, make that determination.

Daily News: You do, just by Federal Reserve fiat, you do?

Sanders: Yeah. Well, I believe you do.

2. The legal implications of breaking up a financial institution

Daily News: Well, it does depend on how you do it, I believe. And, I’m a little bit confused because just a few minutes ago you said the U.S. President would have authority to order…

Sanders: No, I did not say we would order. I did not say that we would order. The President is not a dictator.

Daily News: Okay. You would then leave it to JPMorgan Chase or the others to figure out how to break it, themselves up. I’m not quite…

Sanders: You would determine is that, if a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. And then you have the secretary of treasury and some people who know a lot about this, making that determination. If the determination is that Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan Chase is too big to fail, yes, they will be broken up.

Daily News: Okay. You saw, I guess, what happened with Metropolitan Life. There was an attempt to bring them under the financial regulatory scheme, and the court said no. And what does that presage for your program?

Sanders: It’s something I have not studied, honestly, the legal implications of that.

3. Prosecuting Wall Street executives for the financial collapse of 2008

Daily News: Okay. But do you have a sense that there is a particular statute or statutes that a prosecutor could have or should have invoked to bring indictments?

Sanders: I suspect that there are. Yes.

Daily News: You believe that? But do you know?

Sanders: I believe that that is the case. Do I have them in front of me, now, legal statutes? No, I don’t. But if I would…yeah, that’s what I believe, yes. When a company pays a $5 billion fine for doing something that’s illegal, yeah, I think we can bring charges against the executives.

Daily News: I’m only pressing because you’ve made it such a central part of your campaign. And I wanted to know what the mechanism would be to accomplish it.

Considering this is the core of his campaign message, Sanders should know all of the points covered in 1, 2 and 3 inside and out. He should have been able to lecture his interrogators into a stupor with his detailed knowledge. Instead, Sanders sounded slightly better than a college student caught off-guard by a surprise test in his best class just before finals.

Sanders has a talking point but has not considered any of the implications of what this talking point means and how to implement this talking point. This interview is scary.

[spooky3]

37. It is incredible to me that he did not ask E. Warren

For ideas on how to implement this before his campaign began, or at least once it heated up.

[Her Sister]

38. This explains better for me the interview he stopped abruptly a few weeks ago!

I remember thinking that the reporter was actually asking good questions even though was from a small local TV station!
And hence stopping that interview at the 4 mins dot!

HRC GROUP!

[MSMITH33156]

42. There were shocking levels

of ignorance in there. How has he been in Washington for that long and not accidentally learned more?

Just because he's liberal doesn't mean he should get a free pass. This is Sarah Palin levels of being uninformed. Goodness gracious.

[LAS14]

43. Keep recommending! This ought to be seen by GDP!

It's deadly! Amazing!!

[fleabiscuit]

44. Kick

[Sparkly]

45. I think he says what people want to hear.

It all sounds great -- problems solved, everything's perfect, as if by magic!

People don't like to hear reality.

Nor will they want to hear anything suggesting that the magical solutions are fiction.

Just clap your hands if you believe...

[Lucinda]

46. KNR

[kjones]

48. He came off looking like an uninformed baffoon with no plans and a few questionable positions...

...so yeah, pretty accurate story...most honest news I've seen in months.
Kudos NYDN.

[72DejaVu]

49. K&R

This story needs it be front and center of ALL political discussion right now.

The interview proves, beyond any doubt, that Bernie is unqualified to be president of the United States.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

50. Maybe he'll get his Red guards to storm the banks?

That's sarcasm BTW but it's as good an answer as any he's given.

[Her Sister]

52. So SO SO Great that it came out before us New Yorkers go out to vote!

So good to know! Really this needs lots of follow-up!

Plus the Nevada Fiasco, the MIA Full taxes returns, the FEC 10 million out of nowhere, surrogates speaking out their beautiful minds...

More?

SO READY FOR HER!