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US POLITICS ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ ... May 15th 2024 Bernie Sanders: Bernie: The Podcast \| Episode 6 PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE5BWFRETdk Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
Bernie: The Podcast \| Episode 6 - Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Bernie Sanders 583K subscribers ... 192,390 views .. 12K likes May 15, 2024 Hear my full conversation with AOC growing up working class in America and the experiences that shaped us. Transcript welcome everybody uh today I am really pleased uh to have on our podcast Alexandria arazo Cortez who represents the 14th District of New York State uh Alexandria thanks so much for being with us of course thank you it's always great uh being together and and chatting Bernie thank you for having me okay um look there's a lot that's going on uh let me start off with a question that I don't know you get asked very often talk a little bit not just about your background you know as a kid growing up where you went to school but how your background impacted your politics today yeah I mean I I was born in the Bronx in late ' 80s and um to two Puerto Rican parents my dad was born when the Bronx was burning and well he was born and was and grew up while the Bronx was burning and my mom was born in a very very um poor and rural area in Puerto Rico and so um even when the Bronx was burning and what my dad was seeing people don't often talk about why and a lot of it was landlords setting fire to their own buildings um sometimes with families inside um in order to recoup Insurance costs and um and because the property values were going down because black and brown families were moving into the neighborhood and Robert Moses was building the Cross Bronx Expressway it was always and so often the result of these larger systems at play that resulted in a lot of the economic exploitation and you know material hardship that we were um that and that that families were were confronted with and so when I talk about my story I feel like there's no there's no story of me without the story of my parents um my mom was born in a very rural and poor area of Puerto Rico and they survived just unspeakable levels of poverty and destitution um and survived and my mom met my dad he was he flew back to Puerto Rico to visit his family and she was a girl next door and that's where their story began and a couple of years later um well they got married moved back to the Bronx and I was born and I was born in the Bronx in a one-bedroom apartment in parchester and um this was a time when the Bronx had about 50% Dropout rates in its schools it was completely abandoned our its children were completely abandoned and my parents felt that in order for me to have a shot our whole extended family had to chip in and um try to see if we could move to a different zip code that had a school system um that that they didn't feel that I would be doomed in W and um your parents were very conscious of the need to get you a decent education absolutely it it it is what shaped so much of their decisions um was my ability to get a decent public education and um so they my whole extended family and it wasn't just my parents my aunts my uncles everybody chipped in wow and helped my parents get a down payment on a very small house 40 minutes north from where we lived and um I went to public school and I went to public school but I also had cousins the the same exact age as I was that didn't have the same opportunity and I was and we were all very close culturally even though we're cousins we kind of grow up like siblings and it was really conscious for me I was very aware from the time I was very very young about the difference in reality and opportunity between me and my cousins wow and it was very deeply ingrained in me that the ZIP code we lived in determined a lot about our destiny and I knew from a very young age that that was wrong I always just felt this really kind of unconscious sense I think when you're a child and you see Injustice you know that something is off but you you don't have the words to articulate it and I felt that way I felt that my my cousins and other members of my family other children of my family were just as smart as I was just as talented as I was but they didn't have books in their schools and they didn't have teachers that cared for them and I knew that the opport our differences an opportunity were not a result of our character or anything or how hard we worked it was a result of of just where we lived and um you know even then it was still hard for my family my mom uh was was a house cleaner and um my dad was trying to small was trying to start a small business um and we had a lot of hardship growing up and um you know I often cleaned houses with my mom and sometimes I'd be cleaning the houses of other kids that I went to school with you know was that a strange experience yeah I mean it it some it was and like also there's a there's of course there's the class element there's also a racial element I was like one of the only nonwhite kids in my school and so it was very othering right like and this was a time when when the town that I lived in was also quickly kind of evolving from a very working class area into more of a suburb like more of a bis suburb and so um what that meant was that there was just a lot of class differences racial differences that were blooming during this time and um you know it's it becomes really apparent and obvious which kids have like the nice sneakers and you know what I'm saying like I know exactly what you're saying when when who is wearing and re-wearing the clothes a little bit more often and you know and that like who has five shirts who has a lot more you know it's funny cuz I had a similar experience wearing the what do they call hand me-- Downs it's called and you don't forget that and you do know which family can afford the nice sakers that you can't afford all right take us from that extraordinary experience uh to how you got involved in politics well I um I grew up a lot um going between Westchester and the Bronx and so you start to kind of see politics emerge and how it starts to play a role in your life as you you know become a teenager and then uh for me in college and I moved back to the Bronx after I graduated college you know my parents did everything they could I went to public school I graduated I went to Boston University graduated bu and I decided that I wanted to go back to the Bronx and organize around early childhood education because I felt that I didn't know what I wanted to do this was right after you know post recession this was around 2011 and um and I was I felt incensed about the extension of the Bush tax cuts when uh during the Obama presidency it was actually very r radicalizing and shocking to me when I saw that when I was in college it was that I was like how could we reward the people who did this and abandon the millions of people who've been victimized by this massive economic crime it was it it was shocking to me and um I moved back uh to to the Bronx and I was also felt very I felt very cynical about the politics in the Bronx this was a time when this is also where I saw a lot of the time of the the limits of just a very superficial kind of racial identity politics where we were electing sure lots of local politicians who were Latino and and and and black and Al and just like a great racial diversity but they still ascribed to the same corruption and the same um the the same just like pay for play politics that every other generation and what we had seen for very for a very long time this kind of this level the color of the skin was a little different yeah exactly and it it it supercharged that kind of cynicism right um and not only that but a lot of them were getting arrested for it they were getting caught and it just became this thing of like and it wasn't just me I think there was just this community sense of like this is not worth a damn and so I was actually very much opposed to any idea of getting involved in electoral politics beside I mean I would vote but uh outside of that I felt that politics is just a place for wealthy people and connected people and corrupt people and I am neither one of those things and I I even if I wanted to lie I'm not a good liar I just felt that it wasn't for me I felt much more satisfied going into more direct organizing families working with families I worked with the national Hispanic Institute I worked with young people around how we can organize and improve our schools and improve our education um but then at that time also um you know the when I was in college my father had gotten sick he passed away and so my mom was a became a single mom and um and we were on the brink of foreclosure ourselves as a result of both the financial crisis and uh a personal financial crisis with the healthcare cost of my dad going through chemotherapy and everything like that and so um I I quit my job and I because I had to help provide for myself and my family and working restaurants at that time you make cash you bring home cash every day um you can have more control over what you bring home as opposed to just a a salary job like you can pick up extra shifts you can do all these other things and that's what I did and what tending bars and yeah I waitressed I tended bar I I that's what I did not for a summer but for four to five years of my life Wow and um it's actually there and my experience doing that and my family's experience that led me to that that was the most important formative political experience of my life all right and jump to a decision to run for the US Congress against all the odds yeah I mean I think um you know spending all of that time working in restaurants I felt like it was really a crucible of so many different political issues despite the ACA being passed neither me nor anyone I worked with had healthcare because it was too expensive um most of the people that were preparing food for other people to eat were undocumented uh the food costs were a result of you know these big a oligopolies and how all those costs get passed on to Little People they're just on and on and on and on the the the the tipped minimum wage you know I would get my check once a week my paycheck and I would I would peel back the paper and unfold it and I would see the check having 50 cents in it every week because you have to report your tips and they take I mean it was it this it just living life in America is radicalizing as a workingclass American and so um after years of that well I think first of all in 2016 you ran and it was I don't think from from the shirts and and and the dirty sneakers that you have as a kid to you know opening that check and seeing 50 cents in it we normalize this to ourselves we accept it and I think really deep down the unconscious rationale that we give ourselves to accept this is this is what I deserve like this or this is what this is my lot this is what I get right and when you ran in 2016 and we talked and the way it wasn't that you talked about Healthcare it was the way you talked about Healthcare it was the first time that I heard an elected leader say everybody deserves Health Care in this country by the fact that they are born a human being that it is in a sense essential right of our dignity and existence especially living in the wealthiest nation in the history of this world and it broke my brain a little bit seeing that on a television and I was literally wiping a glass from behind a bar and I I I didn't even realize that I didn't think I deserved health care until I heard someone say that I did and then hearing that I was like why don't we have these things this is right this is we are living in an absurdity getting a 60c paycheck makes no sense and it was very radicalizing for me and um and you know not only that and I'm not saying this just to blow smoke at you go ahead you're doing great but also when you were the first presidential candidate to come to the Bronx since Bobby Kennedy in 1968 and you know what you may not know this we were told not to go there been a murder in the area a few within the week and the cops said look this you know we don't it's not a good idea there going to be disturbances and everything else it was a wonderful event it was and I I I volunteered I didn't know that I volunteered thank you very much you're welcome you're welcome we helped set it up we helped you know we we had uh we we had like a you know the campaign set up like a uh an office an organizing office and I was there 500 a.m. we're hanging door hangers on people's doors before 10,000 people something and we had and there was overflow and it was it it was so important because prior to that there were only you were the you were the first since Bobby Kennedy as a candidate but the only other in between that time was Ronald Reagan who came to the South Bronx and and compared it to Dresden and left to post World War II Dresden and left and you're going there really like it was it was shocking because nobody cares about us we're a deep blue community in a deep blue City in a deep blue State there is no electoral incentive to care about us and you went there and we're a burrow that doesn't have the highest vote turnout either because of the cynicism because of this internalized apathy and I was like holy we're doing it we're we're making ourselves matter we're making ourselves matter and um and that was such a fantastic day in St Mary's Park and I was one of the volunteers there we helped advance and set up the event and then I got to be part of the crowd and um and it really meant something to me and after that race I I dove back into organizing I I uh got involved um with black lives matter I went to Standing Rock um in order to fight the Keystone XL pipeline and it was after those experiences that I had kind of felt for me I think that my family my background the way that I'm raised and also what is informed my politics even intellectually is very much the spiritual undercurrent of of a left politics especially in America liberation theology the Civil Rights Movement was your family Catholic my my family my family well my father's Catholic I was raised Catholic and my mother my mother's side of the family in Puerto Ric was more Pentecostal and so um I had felt at that point that I was just I felt ready to just devote myself in a much Fuller sense in my life to a greater struggle for justice and I didn't know what that meant um and then uh there was then people started calling attention to our local congressman who was a party boss I remember looking him up and my family's lived in the Bronx for over 30 for I mean way longer than 30 years but like since I was born but my my dad too since he was born and I remember looking up this guy and I was like I've never seen this man in my life like not once ever I was like who is this and I kind of thought you know if I haven't seen him and if I don't know who he is then I know that no one else knows who you're talking about Joe Crowley who was an upand cominging leader yeah in the Democratic establishment here in Washington yeah and um I I started to dig into what the deal was here cuz how does a person that is just completely unknown become the congressman and I saw and I started to follow the money of what was going on and even though he was not very welln in the community he was extremely wellknown and extremely powerful among the New York City political Elite he was not only The Heir Apparent to the speakership in the US House of Representatives he was also the chairman of the Queens County Democratic party which is a very which was arguably the strongest political machine in all of New York City and so he not only had National politics but he also he built that that path to National politics by really being a powerful player in the New York City real EST and how old were you at this time at this time when I was looking at this I was probably 26 or 27 so you decided to take on a guy who was going to come the speaker of the house and the leader of the Queens Democratic party right yeah yeah why not and I think the reason for it was um twofold no one else would was quite as crazy as he was yeah no one else would do it um it it was clear that anybody who wanted any future in politics uh would never do this and I wasn't particularly attached to a future in politics so I and we hadn't had a primary election in 14 years because this machine would intimidate bully people out sue them off the ballot and it became really apparent that the only kind of person that would run would be a complete and total long shot with no chance so I said my goal was if we at least had a choice if we at least forced the first primary election in 14 years in this community then that will have been a service like let's just see if we can get on the ballot this a funny story so you got on the ballot and what happen on the ballot and guess what this is important because a lot of people like to tell is history about it and I understand there was a lot of people that played a role in in that Victory but getting on the ballot I was totally alone with just the few Scrappy people in the neighborhood that were crazy enough to believe that this was worthwhile we W endorsed by almost anybody and not only that but I mean truly the people who were collecting signatures in that time were just people in the neighborhood and I had no money like none at all I had a a paper grocery bag with with um a clipboard and you know stuff that I keep behind the bar I'd work my shift i' take my bag with my clipboard out and then I go out across the Bronx and queens it was it was lunacy it was lunacy but um there were enough people that we were able to organize at that point that we collected the signatures to get on the ballot and not only that we collected about six or seven times that um so that they couldn't sue us off they couldn't throw us off and after I got on the ballot then and we met our first goal which was to force the first primary election uh in 14 years um people started paying more attention to it and I kept messaging I think really at the end of the day the core the core goal and the core message of our campaign was that we deserve better it was to try to spread the gospel on this which is that we don't have to justify being able to afford to live we shouldn't have to justify or need some convoluted argument as to why people should be paid enough all right so you started the campaign people thought you crazy yeah no chance at all to win yeah and on Election Day what happened so on Election Day I never allowed myself to even um imagine myself winning because it felt way too crazy but I also never imagined myself losing either I just imagined myself getting to 8:59 p.m. the minute before the polls close and then just what happens happens um but that day earlier that day we were canvasing going around I remember we were going around to the polls making sure everything's okay and that day I was walking down the street and this car this family um was driving down the street and there were all these kids inside and I was walking down the street and this local family they they look out the window and they honk and they go Alexandria we just voted for you and that's when I was like wait we could win this thing we could win this thing and um so the polls close 8:59 p.m. and I get in the car and my friends are driving the car and my mom's in there with me and I'm so so nerv nous and my mom's cell phone starts going off and it's ping ping ping but I didn't know what the results were and I was like Mom can you just silence your phone for a second I was like so nervous and we get out of the car um and I was so nervous we didn't even have a location for a watch party my friend just like let's just meet at the Billiards Hall and we go to the Billiards hul and we ask them to put it on up on the screen and we go up and not only am I winning but we were up like 10 points all right there's a lot nothing a lot things to be learned from what Alexandria just said and that is in many ways what the establishment is about is a lot of money people talking to each other but if you can organize at the Grassroots level and she's outspent 100 to one or something it ain't much there MH I mean there really isn't they have wealth they have power but there aren't many of them and bottom line is and I saw that in my presidential campaign took on Hillary oh my God it's the entire Democratic establishment why are you even running turns out they're just not many of them yeah uh and they are very far removed in many ways from the realities of working people's lives so I mean what Alexandria's story is about is not only an extraordinary story about you know what she has accomplished but I think it's a lesson for for uh everybody and sometimes we become a little bit pessimistic about the state of the world and where we are politically but when you have people willing to take on big money uh willing to do Grassroots organizing who come from you know the working class themselves uh we can accomplish great things all right I want to switch gear now um I know that you and I have been criticized uh for uh our support of President Biden M you disagree with him over what's going on in Gaza I strongly disagree with him as well I am also supporting his reelection why are you supporting Joe Biden for president well I think um to me I look at this through an analysis of power and an analysis of conditions um I think that I mean when we look at the conditions that are available to us in terms of what is most receptive to mass movement politics I think and I maintain that it is unequivocal that um mass movements have been able to be more effective under Joe Biden presidency than Donald Trump presidency um and I also know that when we look at the horrors of what is happening in Gaza that um that people's feelings and understanding about this is is completely understandable and Justified um and I think that it is uh you know it that there are multiple things that can be true at the same time that we can see this war machine at work and the way that it it um operates and puts so many innocent lives in Peril and we can also see how the nlrb has issued some of the most radical Pro labor policies that in other words what I think you're saying is in so many words at least what I'm saying is a reelecting Trump would be a total disaster for this country and unical and that you know Biden has accomplished some good and important things you and I were together with him talking about the climate cause something I know you've worked on uh since you got elected to congress and I worked on solar panels making solar panels affordable to working class Americans he is the first president ever to walk on a picket line making it very clear he is pro worker very strongly pro-union uh and when you talk about this election I hope everybody understands uh if Trump is elected uh the right of women to control their own bodies is we're going to be on the not not only is it gone we will they are talking about active pursuit of criminalization right unbelievable putting women in jail right talking about climate change I would hope that most of our viewers understand that climate change not only is real but unless there's World cooperation the kind of planet with leaving future Generations is very much in question Donald Trump thinks the climate change is a hooks Biden has put more money into Transforming Our Energy System than any president uh in history so I think you know what Alexandria is saying and what I'm saying is yeah we have disagreements with Biden some of them very strong uh but he has done some good things and the hope is that if we mobilize at the Grassroots level we're going to get him to do better things in the future but you know as I said many times Joe Biden is not running against God he's not running against some perfect candidate far from it he's running against the most dangerous president in American history and you know bottom line is you have in uh Trump somebody who really has spent much of his life in recent years undermining American democracy we know our democracy is far from perfect it's corrupt in many re ways super packs with billionaire funding elect terrible people can we know right now they're going against our friends right they're going to lot of money trying to defeat people who are standing up on this war who are standing up for workers rights that's what a super pack p is doing right now but if you have a trump elected president all of that is going to be multiplied a dozen times over and literally the foundations of American democracy in this country and working with right-wing extremists all over the world the the experiment in democracy only a couple hundred years old maybe over and maybe we'll go back to the authoritarian form of government that existed for so long so I know that you know a lot of progressives are struggling with this issue 100% And I get it uh but I would ask people to take a look at the alternative and to do the best that we can do yeah and I think also because I I deeply understand and have felt this idea of you know we're sick of having to choose between the lesser of two evils and to that I also say it's not just about this it's also looking and and trying to actively support who people feel are heroes in our democracy because we can do both of these things at at the same time you have Jamal Bowman who's up against huge corporate money in Westchester County who is standing up and doing courageous things we have more members of Congress now that have that are willing to Buck The Establishment than we have had in decades it was just no not in decades ever all right I want to say this sorry I know a little bit about this just a bit I was elected uh to the US House from Vermont in 1991 took office in ' 91 helped form the progressive caucus at that point you know how many people we had five all right I mean I once talked to Raul grala about this and he said the the progressive caucus when we started it was like me and Bernie and Barb Le and it was basically a gome Chomsky book club something like that and now you have almost 100 including something extraordinary some of the best and brightest and strongest members of Congress in the modern history of this country and I know again when people get pessimistic about politics there has never been never been more strong progressors often younger people people of color than ever so we should be very proud of and that's what the Progressive Movement has accomplished but I here's here's where I have a question is that I think that that's true and I actually think that the greatest trick that the establishment plays on us is trying to convince us that we're not winning when we are um in order to get us to give up but you went through such a long time of actual deep extreme marginalization oh marginalization for a very long time you want to talk about marginalization and I want to know why didn't you give up when you were one out of 435 all right let's talk about modularization all right marginalization is getting elected to the US House defeating an incumbent okay and people of Vermont were very generous and I'll tell you a story about that election well like in my state at least people do not like negativity they don't and they respond against that and my opponent became very negative and their backfire them Etc all right anyhow get elected I had been in touch after I got elected with the Democratic Leadership and saying okay look I'm an independent I'm that's how I was elected that's how I will be but obviously I expect the function within the Democratic caucus right no problem Bernie you're delighted to have you come in there well got elected go to Washington and for the first time in my life I I know I date myself here turns out they had been able to research all of the things that I had said over the years about Democrats and somebody spread it around the caucus conservative Democrat and Democrat said well you know we're not quite so sure we may want you in the CAU I went first through the first few weeks of being a member of the Congress I didn't have committee assignments wow I didn't have a place to sit I mean wow uh and uh I chose the Committees I chose were with good progressives you remember my Henry Gonzalez that name anything from Texas a really strong Progressive and John kany from Michigan of course those are the Committees I wanted to be on and it took weeks and weeks before they allowed me to sit on that committee was it was it uh Energy and Commerce or it was Banking and government oper but was called now called government operations so like oversight so we had the same committee assignment our freshman turn fincial services and oversight but you at least got seated I I mean I got seated faster than you did but you got there I I did so that's called that's called marginalization all right um and that was on day one yeah that was on day that was a hi welcome to the Congress but we can't put you on any committee so all right life goes on all right I want to take us um but why did you stay I mean that that to me I'll tell you why I say now what am I going to do walk away from the people of Vermont to with elected me uh for but for years to deal with that well I stayed for many of the reasons that you described earlier I grew up in a family that didn't have any money we lived in a rent control Department in Brooklyn I also saw kids who had fancier sneakers nicer homes and everything else and it did not seem just uh to me uh and I also saw something you know what we don't talk about enough as a society is what stress stress oh my gosh all right and stress has a lot to do with economics you know this absolutely people are wondering how they're going to feed their kids if the landlord raises the rent you got to take your kid out of school find another school to put that kid in what's happening to your parents you talked about your dad becoming ill bills piling up half a million people go bankrupt in this country because a medically related bills well my family had that tress so here was my father who came to from Poland to America at the Agee of 17 with without a nickel in its pocket okay it became a very proud America never made any money but the idea that he could raise two kids with a roof over his head without anti-Semitism wow absolutely my mother on the other hand her parents came from I think with Russian Poland area she wanted more cuz she was born in America Sahar my father was very content and never made much money but he made money he had a job my mother wanted a house of her own that's what her dream was she didn't want to live in a rent control Department what was her dream she never achieved it she died young uh so and the tension in our family always revolves around money my mom wanted this we can't afford this can we do this can you buy this arguments and when you're a kid I don't know about your household oh yeah but the arguments SE oh yeah you know and you know and that's what I experienced and I think that's what millions of people experienc right now just tremendous stress so you know that's one of the factors that said no I'm I ain't going to give up some yeah that's it yeah all right now I'm going to ask you another question that is not often asked you and I are self-defined as Democratic socialists okay so what does that mean what's your vision for America what would you like to see if things worked out the way you'd like uh um it's funny to ask this question because I was in a I was in a congressional um kind of meeting kind of hearing earlier today and I'm I'm sitting on the DI and uh and it was about technology and Ai and all of this and this congressman who was uh on on a higher di I he says it completely straight face totally seriously he says there's something about our economic system here where all of the gains seem to be going just to the very top shock of all shocks yes and he's like I don't know what it is about this but um it does seem to be a problem that we need to address and that is why I am a Democratic Socialist yes because I believe that um that the people who create value and wealth and work in our society and our economy deserve many more of the fruits of their labor and that I believe that democracy is not just for ballot boxes but it is for our economy I believe that workers should not check their rights at the door of their workplace I believe that um people should be able to have economic rights I believe that um we must protect the essential Dignity of letum and I think what Alexandria is saying it goes back by the way to 1936 you know said that Franklin Del Roso and basically in paraphrasing what he said is look it's great we have a Bill of Rights we have political rights you can vote every two years every four years that's great but people deserve economic rights and this is a radical statement you hold it I hold it are people entitled to healthc care as a human right well yeah yes are all people regardless of their income entitled to good education from Child Care through graduate school if they want that whe they want to go to training school whatever they want yeah they are people entitled to decent housing yeah yeah I think so mhm and the point is living in the richest country in the history of the world this is not some utopian fantasy it's not this can be done you talk about AI so the question I don't know what your committee meeting was about AI has the potential to increase productivity exponentially who's going to benefit from that is it going to continue to go to the 1% and the CEOs who are already incredibly wealthy so you know folks what we are talking about is not fantasy it is concrete reality you live in a very very wealthy society which today has more income and wealth inequality than ever ever existed in the history of America all right that's the reality three people on top only more wealth in the bottom half of American sty you happy with that is that good 60% of people live in paycheck to paycheck struggling to put food on on the table can we do better of course we can do better but to do better you know without Andrea has done for a whole life is take on very very powerful special interest who are delighted with the status quo they think the status quo is just great political system is great you're a billionaire let's spend a few hundred million dollars defeating somebody economic system is great my company is just making huge profits all right that's what we're taking on and I think it's it's an important it's an important point to bring up what the alternative is if we do not assert ourselves and enshrine our rights and demand health care and education and the underpinings of what of of dignity because if we do not assert this the alternative is barbarism who said that way back with you tell me a woman a Rosa Luxenberg that's right and she said and she did this after the horrors of World War I MH when tens of millions of people were killed and she's right mhm either we're going to have a Cooperative Society where we and love each other or you're going to have a handful of people on top whose greed is their religion which is what which is what we are contending with now the fact that people are choosing between medicine and rent is barbarism the fact that people are worried about whether they will be on the street every four weeks is barbarism the fact that every time a person has an ache or a pain in their body and they're scared that it could either be uh uh it could either be just a sore joint or cancer but they can't find out because they can't afford the doctor this is barbarism and if we do not demand and not only demand but win unions Health Care wages ending endless war then we will condemn ourselves to barbarism and I refuse to give up I refuse to to submit myself to that future that's not a life and so to live we have to fight for each other and we have to stand with each other and we have to fight for this vision and this world and you know whether I I mean whether we live to see it or not I believe we will but at the end what matters is what is is what we dedicated ourselves to and that's to me is what makes it both successful and valuable and folks on that note I want to thank Alexandra uh not only for being here but be for being an incredible inspiration to so many millions of young people you're playing an enormously important role thank you very much well Bernie I want to thank you because I think your story is my story and my story is your story and now we're sounding like old politicians thaning each other they it's true it's true you're all you know brushing It Off Your Shoulder but it's millions of people's lives have changed just from hearing you let alone the victories that you've had and the material changes that you've made in people's lives including mine and my families so I want to thank you I don't think I would have had Healthcare as a kid I I had I had child I was on Child Healthcare Plus in New York I don't know if I would have been able to see a doctor if it wasn't for you fighting for me before I knew who you even were so thank you thank you all right folks that's it see you allw soon take care all right I'm cutting what was that that was fantastic thank you okay great

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