WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today gave remarks on the floor of the Senate regarding President Trump’s lies and asking his colleagues when they will stand up to the president.
Sanders’ remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below and can be watched HERE:
We live in difficult times – in times where people throughout our country are experiencing a great deal of anxiety for a number of reasons. And in the midst of all of that, it is important that we not forget what is taking place, not only in Ukraine, but back home here in the United States.
And back home, right now, tens of millions of Americans are struggling economically to keep their heads above water. 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. 85 million are uninsured or underinsured. And we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major nation on Earth.
And as someone who has visited senior centers throughout the state of Vermont and has spoken to seniors throughout our country, I can tell you that there is a significant level of fear and anxiety among the older people in this country with regard to what’s happening right here in DC.
When we have a president of the United States and Republicans who are talking about massive cuts to Medicaid, let’s understand – and seniors do understand – that we are not just talking about throwing millions of kids off the health care that they have, at a time when we are the only major country on Earth not to provide health care to all people, not just kids, off of health care.
We are talking about massive cuts to community health centers, which receive over 40% of their funding from Medicaid, and where millions of seniors go to get the primary care they need.
And at a time when we already have a major crisis in nursing home availability, let us understand that Medicaid provides funding for two out of every three seniors who live in nursing homes. In other words, massive cuts to Medicaid would be a disaster for senior citizens throughout this country. But it is not just Medicaid cuts that worry our seniors.
Today, quite unbelievably, 25% of people in our country who are 65 years of age or older are trying to survive on incomes of $15,000 a year or less. I, myself, do not know how anybody, let alone a senior with health care needs, can survive on $15,000 a year, but that is what 25% of our seniors are trying to do.
Mr. President, this issue of so many seniors struggling to get by, struggling to heat their homes, struggling to buy the food or the prescription drugs they need – this is an issue we must address. And it is a crisis that is unacceptable in the richest country in the history of the world.
And that is why, Mr. President, I am proud to tell you that within the next several weeks I, along with a number of cosponsors, will be introducing legislation that expands Social Security benefits and extends the solvency of Social Security for decades.
We’re hearing a lot of talk about cutting Social Security. We should not be talking about cutting Social Security. We must be talking about expanding Social Security benefits. And the legislation that I will introduce will do just that.
It will expand social security benefits by $2,400 a year, and it would not raise taxes by one penny on the bottom 93% of Americans – those who make less than $250,000 a year. And how do we do that? By lifting the cap and applying the Social Security payroll tax on all income above $250,000.
Unbelievably, under current law, a billionaire pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $176,000 a year. Elon Musk, worth $400 billion, pays the same amount into Social Security as somebody who makes $176,000. That is because, under Social Security, there is an absurd cap on taxable income.
If we lifted that cap and made sure that millionaires and billionaires paid the same percentage of their income into Social Security as the working class of this country, we could extend the life of Social Security for generations to come and lift millions of seniors out of poverty.
Further, Mr. President, when we talk about the needs of senior citizens in this country, I want to mention that I will also be introducing legislation to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing.
It is unacceptable that millions of seniors are unable to read a newspaper because they cannot afford eyeglasses, can’t have conversations with their grandchildren because they can’t afford hearing aids, and have trouble eating because they cannot afford dentures. That should not be happening in the United States of America in the year 2025.
Expanding Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing is an extremely popular concept. Poll after poll shows that 80% of the American people – Democrats, Republicans, Independents – support doing just that.
All across this country there is a growing fear that the Trump administration is undermining the Constitution of our country – a Constitution which has kept us a free nation and an example, a model of the rest of the world, for the last 250 years.
During the last month alone, President Trump has attempted to usurp the powers of Congress illegally and unconstitutionally, refusing to fund programs passed by Congress.
He has illegally destroyed agencies like USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that were created by Congress. And under the leadership of Mr. Musk, they have illegally and inappropriately gained access to tax data and Social Security data of millions of Americans.
Every day, they are acting in an illegal and unconstitutional manner. Just this week, President Trump tweeted, “he who saves his country does not violate any law.”
Wow.
In other words, Mr. Trump sees himself, the president of the United States, as above the law and immune from the basic rules of the Constitution and the separation of powers that have governed this country since the founding.
“Anything I want to do, I’m president, I can do it. It doesn’t matter what Congress says, it doesn’t matter what the Constitution says, it doesn’t matter what the rule of law is about. I don’t need to hear from anybody else.”
That’s not what Americans fought and died to preserve. In regard to the move to authoritarianism, let me say a few words about an area that I think has not gotten much attention at all. And that is Trump’s attack on the free press, which is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The Founding Fathers of this country considered freedom of speech and free press to be enormously important. That was the First Amendment.
Mr. Trump has sued CBS and its parent company, Paramount, for $20 billion because he didn’t like how they edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. The company is now reportedly considering settling the lawsuit, and I certainly hope they do not do that, out of fear of retaliation from Trump’s FCC.
He did not like a television program on CBS. But you don’t sue somebody for $20 billion because you didn’t like the program.
And obviously, the intention of that lawsuit is clear: and that is that CBS, and every other network and media outlet, will now have to look over their shoulder. “Oh, my goodness, we’re saying something critical of Donald Trump. Is he going to sue us for $5 billion or $10 billion? Maybe we should not run that Maybe we should not do that investigative report.”
Not just CBS. In recent times he has sued ABC. He has sued Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. He has sued the Des Moines Register.
What crime did a little newspaper in Iowa make? What was their crime? They ran a poll which turned out, in retrospect, to be inaccurate. So pollsters all over America, be careful.
How absurd is that? And what kind of threat is it to freedom of speech and expression in this country?
Mr. President, when we talk about the Trump administration’s movement toward authoritarianism, we should take note of another remarkable and troubling set of events that happened just this week. We saw the president of the United States openly aligning himself with the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin, to undermine the independence of Ukraine and abandon our closest democratic allies in Europe.
Trump made it clear that he sees one of the world’s most brutal dictators as his pal. And our long time democratic allies as his enemies.
It appears that Mr. Trump wants a world that is safe for authoritarians and oligarchs, but dangerous and unstable for democracies. And when we talk about authoritarianism, we have got to mention the growing phenomenon in this country of the Big Lie: say something that is blatantly untrue, repeat it over and over again and then blast that lie out on social media until people actually believe it.
Let me mention one of the very big lies that Trump said recently regarding the war in Ukraine. Earlier this week, the president said that Ukraine started the war. Trump said that Ukraine started the war. Really?
That is, as I hope every member of the Senate knows, an absolute lie.
Russia invaded Ukraine twice, first in 2014 and then again on February 24, 2022. And on that date, February 24, 2022, Putin’s tanks and troops rolled into Ukraine. And on that day, Russian aircraft began bombing targets all over Ukraine.
Russia started the war, period, end of discussion. Trump is lying.
Since Putin’s invasion over one million people having been killed or injured. Every single day, Russia continues to rain down hundreds of missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities. Putin’s forces have massacred civilians and captured Ukrainian children, bringing them back to Russian “re-education” camps. There atrocities led the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, in 2022, as a war criminal.
Further, Trump called Ukrainian President Zelensky – not Putin, but Zelensky, a dictator. And that obviously is not true either. Zelenskyy won 75% of the vote in free elections. And in the midst of a brutal war, Ukraine’s parliament continues to function and open and unfettered political debate takes place.
Trump recently claimed that our European allies have done little to support Ukraine in its fight against Putin’s invasion. He said the U.S. has contributed three times more than Europe. But that is another lie. In fact, Europe has provided more aid to Ukraine than the United States.
But it’s not just that Trump is lying again. That is not new. It’s what this all reveals about where we want to take our country and where we want the world to be moving – what direction.
Trump is cozying up to Vladimir Putin. So who is Putin? And what kind of world does Putin want to build?
Putin is a dictator who crushed Russia’s movement toward democracy after the end of the Cold War. Russia now holds sham elections where Putin wins 90% of the vote, and authorities there do not even try to hide their ballot stuffing.
There it is no freedom of speech or free media in Putin’s Russia. Protests are violently suppressed. Tens of thousands of people are in prison for protesting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Political dissidents are harassed or thrown into jail. The bravest, like Alexei Navalny are killed outright. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled Putin’s Russia since his invasion of Ukraine.
That, Mr. President, is the Russian leader that Donald Trump admires. But, Mr. President, my Republican colleagues know all of this. And what is particularly disturbing to me – and I believe the American people – is my colleagues, my Republican colleagues understand and know that Trump is lying. They know that Russia started the war, not Ukraine. They know that Putin is a dictator, not Zelensky. But their silence has been overwhelming on this issue.
I cannot tell you how many times I have sat here on the floor and I have listened to my Republican colleagues come to the Senate to condemn Vladimir Putin and his brutal invasion of Ukraine. And many of their remarks were right on the money. They were perceptive and they were right.
And my simple question to my Republican colleagues right now is: “Where are you now?”
Last I heard, Mr. President, this is still a democracy. Last I heard, we are still allowed to disagree with the president of the United States, even if he is a member of your own party. Last I heard, we are allowed to call out the president when he lies – blatantly lies, even if he is a member of our own party. And what really bothers me is I know that many of my Republican colleagues understand all of this.
And I just want to give you an example of what is going on right now. Let me just quote a few of my Republican colleagues in statements they have made since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. These are Republican members of the United States Senate. And I’m not going to mention names right now. I don’t want to embarrass anybody, put anybody on the spot. But these are quotes.
One leading Republican said, “we must remember the instigator of this war was Russia. It was president Putin who launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine.” And that Republican colleague was obviously right.
Another Republican said, and I quote. “I think Vladimir Putin started the war, I also believe, through bitter experience, that Vladimir Putin is a gangster.” That’s a Republican colleague.
A third Republican colleague said, “there is no equivalency between Vladimir Putin and President Zelensky. President Putin is evil and he has to be stopped.”
A fourth Republican said, when the war began, “today’s invasion of Ukraine by Russia is a premeditated and flagrant act of war. Putin has violated the border of a sovereign country.” And that senator later said, “anyone who is surprised by Putin’s deadly attack on a sovereign nation has not been paying attention. These are the actions of a mad man.” And just recently, that very same senator said, “Putin is not going to stop with Ukraine. If we abandon Ukraine and throw in the towel as some would like us to do, that is going to drastically change how people view the United States and how people rely on the United States and there will be major consequences.”
And a fifth Republican colleague here in the Senate called Putin a “thug” and compared him to Hitler. He said, “Vladimir Putin is not a legitimate leader. He is a war criminal that needs to be dealt with.”
That is what my Republican colleagues have said time and time again.
And the question is, now, do you have the courage to continue telling the truth when the president of the United States is lying?
This is an extraordinarily pivotal moment in American history. And all of us must have the courage to stand up for truth, to stand up for democracy, to oppose authoritarianism.
This is the moment.
