Read the full transcript of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ remarks on the Senate floor titled “Oligarchy, Authoritarianism & Kleptocracy in America” on Feb 5, 2025,
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Threat to Democracy
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: …… billionaires. The Trump administration is moving this country very aggressively into an authoritarian society where the rule of law and our Constitution are being ignored and undermined in order to give more power to the White House and the billionaires who now control our government. The Trump administration is moving this country very rapidly toward a kleptocracy where the function of government is not to serve the needs of ordinary people but to enrich those who are in power.
Remembering Lincoln’s Words
Mr. President, I think that today is a very good day to recall what one of our great presidents said at Gettysburg in November of 1863. Looking out at a battlefield where thousands of Union soldiers had just sacrificed their lives in the defense of freedom and the ending of slavery, Abraham Lincoln famously stated, and I quote:
“The world will no longer remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did, the soldiers did, here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”
And this is how he concluded: “That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Mr. President, I fear very much that under President Trump we are not seeing a government of the people, by the people, for the people, but rather a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class.
The Billionaire Influence
And what is really interesting is that none of this is happening behind closed doors. It’s not being done in secret. It’s right out there for everybody to see. Several weeks ago Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second term as president.
Standing right behind him were the three richest men in America, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Combined, these three men are worth nine hundred and twenty billion dollars. These three men own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, a hundred and seventy million people. Three guys, a hundred and seventy million people.
And I should point out, and this should tell you exactly where we are going as a nation, these three men, wealthiest three in America, have become some two hundred and thirty-two billion dollars richer since Trump was elected a few weeks ago. Three guys, two hundred and thirty-two billion dollars richer since Trump was elected. Mr. President, this is how an oligarchic system works.
The Power of Money in Politics
Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world and now a key part of the Trump administration, spent over two hundred and seventy-seven million to get Trump elected. In other words, within a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaires to spend as much as they want, he helped buy the election for Mr. Trump. Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, the second and third wealthiest people in our country, both kicked a million dollars each into Trump’s inauguration fund.
And let us remember that Mr. Bezos, who among other things, owns the Washington Post, rescinded the endorsement of that paper for Kamala Harris just before the election. Mr. Bezos was showing early on that he was willing to bend the knee for Donald Trump. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, agreed to settle a lawsuit with Trump for $25 million. These three multi-billionaires are working with Trump for one very simple reason.
They understand that Trump’s policies are designed to make the very wealthiest people in this country even richer. Since Trump’s election, Mr. Musk has become $154 billion richer. Not bad in a couple of weeks’ time.
He earned a great investment. He only spent a couple of hundred million on the election, and now he’s $154 billion richer. Mr. Bezos has become $35 billion richer, and Mr. Zuckerberg has become $43 billion richer.
The Move Towards Authoritarianism
Mr. President, I am concerned not only about the growing movement toward oligarchy in this country, but I am deeply worried that under the leadership of President Trump, we are moving rapidly towards authoritarianism. All over this country, people are alarmed and shocked by what they have seen in the last several weeks. Just a few examples. Just a few.
Last week, President Trump attempted to suspend all federal grants and loans in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal law. As every third grader in America knows, or I do hope knows, the power of the purse in the United States belongs to Congress, not the President. Yes, the President can recommend legislation to Congress. The President can veto legislation that Congress has passed, but he does not have the power to unilaterally terminate funding and legislation that has been passed by the U.S. Congress. That is a dangerous and blatantly unconstitutional act.
And I should add that Trump’s blocking of federal funding would have had a horrific impact on millions of Americans who utilize programs like Medicaid, Head Start, community health centers, Meals on Wheels, homeless veterans programs, and many, many other initiatives. Tens of millions of Americans, including some of the most vulnerable in our country, were impacted by that decision.
Undermining Government Oversight
But that’s not all.
A few days ago, Trump fired 17 inspectors general, independent government watchdogs that were created by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal to prevent the abuse of power by the executive branch.
Last week, President Trump fired a member of the National Labor Relations Board, and in so doing, effectively neutered the only federal agency in America with the authority to hold corporations accountable for illegal union busting and to protect the constitutional right of millions of workers who want to join unions in order to earn better wages, working conditions, and benefits. Not only is that move blatantly illegal, it is exactly what Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, and Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, have been fighting for months.
They don’t like unions, and what Mr. Trump has given them is the opportunity to make it much, much harder for workers to organize in their companies. President Trump also illegally fired members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the only independent commission in our country that protects workers against discrimination in the workforce.
Attacks on Media Freedom
And what should upset every American, no matter whether you’re conservative, moderate, progressive, is that in direct violation of the Constitution and federal law, Trump is intimidating the media with lawsuits against ABC, CBS, META, and the Des Moines Register.
His FCC is now threatening to investigate PBS and NPR. What Trump is essentially saying to every media outlet in America, if you say or do anything that is critical of me, that displeases me, you may be subject to a lawsuit or a federal investigation. If that is not a direct attack on the First Amendment, on the U.S. Constitution, and free speech in our country, I don’t know what is.
But that is not all. Elon Musk and his unelected minions at Doge have forced out officials at the Treasury Department and illegally shut down USAID, a program which, among other things, helps feed and provide medical help to starving and desperate children all over the world. Presidents, much less unelected billionaires, do not have the unilateral right to shut down federal agencies established by Congress.
And when we talk about the very dangerous movement towards authoritarianism that we are seeing in this country now, let us not forget Trump’s pardoning of the January 6th insurrectionists who injured 174 police officers right here, right outside this floor. Even worse, not only did he pardon those people, but Trump is undermining the FBI by actually investigating the agents there who helped bring these violent criminals to justice.
Imagine that. Pardoning the people who broke the law and investigating the people who upheld the law. That is not what America is supposed to be about.
The Rise of Cryptocracy
And Mr. President, under Trump, we are rapidly moving toward a cryptocracy as well. Just before the President was inaugurated, he and his wife launched their own cryptocurrency coins, giving them the potential to earn many billions of dollars. If Wall Street CEOs tried to bribe the President with a bag full of money, that would be illegal. That’s against the law.
But now they don’t have to do that. Today, if a multi-billionaire or the head of a foreign country wants to curry favor with the President, all they have to do is buy his cryptocurrency coins, and when they do that, they are directly enriching Mr. Trump.
A Call to Action
So, Mr. President, the question that millions of Americans are asking is, given the move toward oligarchy, given the move toward authoritarianism, given the movement toward kleptocracy, where do we go from here? What should we, as Americans, be doing?
And let me tell you what I think and what most Americans think. And that is, instead of moving toward an economy which is designed to benefit the very richest people in our country, we have got to create an economy and a government that works for all of us, not just for Mr. Musk or Mr. Bezos or Mr. Zuckerberg.
Mr. President, at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we have never had more income and wealth inequality than we have had right now. It is beyond stupidity to provide more tax breaks to the very richest people in our country and then to pay for those tax breaks by cutting back on Medicaid and other programs desperately needed by working families all across this country.
That is what we should not be doing. But let me take a moment to tell you what we should be doing.
A Vision for America
At a time when 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured in our broken health care system, we have got to do what every other major country on earth does, and that is guarantee health care to all people as a human right, not a privilege. That’s what we’ve got to do. At a time when one out of four Americans cannot afford the outrageously high prices that the pharmaceutical industry charges, we have got to end the absurdity of the American people paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
We have got to cut the cost of medicine in this country in half, making it comparable with what the rest of the world is paying. Mr. President, the federal minimum wage today is $7.25 an hour. That is a starvation wage.
While 60% of our people, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, we must raise that minimum wage to a living wage, at least $17 an hour. If you work 40 hours a week in the richest country on earth, you should not be living in poverty. Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos want to make it harder for workers to join unions. Well, we have got to do exactly the opposite, make it easier for workers to join unions by passing the PRO Act.
At a time when we need the best educated workforce in the world, we need to have the best public schools in the world. And among other things, that means we need to substantially raise teachers’ salary. We need to attract the best and the brightest young people into education, and we do that, among other things, by making sure that no teacher in America earns less than $60,000 a year. We also radically reform our broken child care system so the little kids in this country get the quality care they need and the workers there are adequately compensated.
Mr. President, all over this country, from Vermont to L.A., we have a major housing crisis. And it’s not just the 800,000 Americans who are homeless. It’s millions of working families who are spending 40, 50, or 60 percent of their limited incomes on housing. Instead of spending almost a trillion dollars a year on a wasteful and bloated Pentagon budget, we have got to build millions of units of low-income and affordable housing.
And when we do that, we put large numbers of American workers to work at good-paying union jobs.
Addressing the Mandate Myth
Mr. President, I have heard time and again from Mr. Trump’s supporters that the President won the election and he has been given this huge mandate, just an overwhelming mandate, to do whatever he wants. Well, no President has the right to move us to oligarchy, authoritarianism, or kleptocracy.
But more important, let us not forget that while Trump did win this election, he actually received 4 million votes fewer votes than Biden did in 2020 when Biden won the election.
A Call for Unity
So here we are. Where do we go? What do we do? I think now is the time for the American people to come together, to not allow those who want to divide us up by the color of our skin or our sexual orientation or where we were born. That’s what they want to do. They want to divide us up.
Now is the time for us to come together like never before and make certain we do not move toward oligarchy, make certain we do not move toward authoritarianism or a kleptocracy. And most importantly, in the richest country in the history of the world, we must understand that we have the capability of providing a decent life for all of our people. We can do that when we stand together and we don’t let folks divide us up.
