Sen. Bernie Sanders responded to the charge that he's supposedly too "radical" or out of the mainstream to ever get elected as president on ABC's This Week.
January 31, 2016

Sen. Bernie Sanders responded to the charge that he's supposedly too "radical" or out of the mainstream to ever get elected as president on ABC's This Week.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You clearly have struck a chord. But we just heard Secretary Clinton make her case. And what's at the heart of her case is that line she had about your, uh, your candidacy, saying she's not going to over-promise and under-deliver.

That was an argument picked up by "The New York Times" in their endorsement of her. They're saying she had the breadth of experience and your proposals are not realistic.

How do you respond to that?

SANDERS: I respond to it by saying that every proposal that I am bringing forth is, in fact, supported by the vast majority of the American people. The problem is, is that Congress is so dominated by big money interests, they are much more concerned about campaign contributions than they are about the needs of working families.

And what I am saying is that, yes, the United States should join the rest of the industrialized world, guarantee health care to all people, have paid family and medical leave, make public colleges and universities tuition-free, create millions of decent paying jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure.

These are not radical ideas, George. And demanding that the wealthiest people and the largest corporations in this country start paying their fair share of taxes, that we break up these large Wall Street conglomerates, these are not radical ideas.

This is what the American people want.

Now the real question is, can we effectively take on the drug companies and the insurance companies and Wall Street and corporate America?

That's a fair question.

I believe the American people are ready for that fight. I'll give you one example, George.

We have received three million individual campaign contributions, averaging $27 apiece. That is more than any candidate in the history of America, up to this point.

Secretary Clinton relies on super PACs and wealthy people to contribute to her campaign. That's the difference. The American people want us to move in a very different direction. They want government to represent all of us, not just the wealthy.

That's why our campaign is doing well. That's why I think we can win the general election.

Dealing with an obstructionist Congress and actually getting anything done is another matter entirely. I don't expect Republicans to behave any better no matter who is elected president as long as they're a Democrat. Sanders is exactly right about most Americans agreeing with his economic proposals and what the barrier is to seeing any of them enacted.

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