APRIL 23, 2016 – In a sit-down interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said his state primary losses were “because poor people don’t vote.” He continued: “I mean, that’s just a fact.”
A transcript of this interview excerpt is below, and you can watch it here: http://nbcnews.to/1SDYOAy.
Tune in to “Meet the Press” tomorrow for more from Sen. Sanders as well as a discussion of the Republican Party’s strategy to stop Donald Trump’s path to nomination with Katie Packer, chair of the leading anti-Trump group, “Our Principles PAC,” and Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee.
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MANDATORY CREDIT: NBC NEWS’ “MEET THE PRESS” / CHUCK TODD
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CHUCK TODD:
I have quite some interesting numbers here. So 17 of the 25 states with the highest levels of income inequality have held primaries. Sixteen of those 17 states have been won by Hillary Clinton, not by you. Why?
BERNIE SANDERS:
Well, because poor people don’t vote. I mean, that’s just a fact. That’s a sad reality of American society. And that’s what we have to transform. We have one– as you know, one of the lowest voter turnouts of any major country on Earth. We have done a good job bringing young people in. I think we have done– had some success with lower income people. But in America today — the last election in 2014, 80% percent of poor people did not vote.
CHUCK TODD:
You feel as if you could find a way to get people that are fighting at that poverty line– you know, either just below it or just above it, if they were getting engaged in the process, you would do better?
BERNIE SANDERS:
If we can significantly increase voter turnout so that low income people and working people and young people participated in the political process, if we got a voter turnout of 75 percent, this country would be radically transformed.
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