Bernie Sanders press conference on Rahm Emanuel in Chicago: transcript

Key points

• Sanders said a rally the night before drew 9,000 people and that he expected to win Illinois if turnout was large.
• He said he did not want Mayor Emanuel's endorsement, citing the mayor's record on closing 50 public schools in mostly poor, Black and Latino neighborhoods.
• He called for Chicago to sue the banks for fraud and said the governor should take legal action over the state's swap payments.
• He said that as president his Justice Department would go after Wall Street.
• Asked about the Trump rally being shut down, he criticized Donald Trump's rhetoric and called on him to tell his supporters that violence at rallies must end.
• He said Hillary Clinton should reject Emanuel's endorsement.

Chapters

1. 0:00Rally turnout and the future of the Democratic Party
2. 1:42Sanders's history in Chicago and Emanuel's endorsement
3. 4:15School closures and the toxic swaps with Wall Street banks
4. 7:34Calls for legal action against banks and the governor
5. 9:54Pledge to pursue Wall Street and thanks to supporters
6. 10:41Questions on Black voters and the Trump rally
7. 14:22Inequality, political revolution and school funding
8. 16:08Working with Emanuel and Clinton's association with him

Full transcript

0:00As you may know, we had a rally last night in Summit. We had 9,000 people out. And what that rally reminded me of is what we saw in Michigan last week, enthusiasm, momentum. So let me say today that if there is a large voter turnout here in Illinois, I believe we are going to win Illinois. As all of the previous speakers pointed out, this campaign is more than just an election between Secretary Clinton and myself.

0:41It is about the future of the Democratic Party. It is about one candidate who has taken just in the last reporting period alone from her super PAC, $15 million from Wall Street, $15 million from Wall Street and we expect more to come in the future. Millions of dollars from the drug companies. Millions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry. That is one part of the Democratic Party. But to my mind that is not the future of the Democratic Party. This is the future of the Democratic Party. The future of the Democratic Party is a party that does What we are doing in this campaign, raising millions and millions of individual contributions, averaging $27 apiece, those are the people that we are going to be beholden to, not Wall Street, not the fossil fuel industry, and not the drug companies.

1:42Now, all of that takes us to the city of Chicago right now. And as some of you may know, Chicago has been an important part of my life. I went to the University of Chicago here for four years, and it was here in Chicago where, for the first time in my life, I became involved in social and political activity, where I became involved in the fight for social and racial justice.

2:20And I know that it is not part of the usual resume of a president of the United States to tell the world that he was arrested, but that was the case. I was arrested here in Chicago back in 1962, fighting against the segregated schools that then existed. And it distresses me very much to hear all that we hear today, to know all that we know. This city is still struggling with institutional racism and with failing public schools. One would have hoped that over a 50-plus year period, things would have changed a little bit more.

3:00Let me say that, as you know, Hillary Clinton proudly lists Mayor Rahm Emanuel as one of her leading mayoral endorsers. I believe he is at the top of the list of mayors who are endorsing her. Well, let me be as clear as I can be. Based on his disastrous record as mayor of the city of Chicago, I do not want Mayor Emanuel's endorsement if I win the Democratic nomination.

3:34That is not the kind of support that I do today. Thank you. We want the endorsement of people who are fighting for social and racial justice. We do not want the support of people who are indebted to Wall Street and the big money interests. Now, Mayor Emmanuel told the people of the city and the country. That he had no choice but to close 50 public schools in Chicago, mostly in poor, black, and Latino neighborhoods, because of a budget deficit.

4:15And as I understand it, he is now threatening to lay off even more teachers, cut their pay, and close even more schools because of a $480 million budget shortfall. Obviously, this is a disaster for communities in Chicago, for communities of color, and for the children of this city. But here is what the mayor conveniently forgets to tell the people of Chicago, and in fact the people of America, because this is an issue that goes beyond Chicago.

4:55The reason why the Chicago public school system is facing a $480 million budget shortfall has everything to do, as we've heard this morning, with the greed on Wall Street. That same greed that destroyed the American economy and resulted in millions of Americans ten years ago losing their jobs, their homes, and their life savings. That greed never ends. The reality is that there wouldn't be a budget shortfall if the city of Chicago had refused to pay Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America over $500 million for risky financial schemes that were marketed as a way to finance the public school system.

5:44That is, half a billion dollars. And what did these banks do for that money? They did a deal with Chicago called a quote-unquote interest rate swap. Bankers sold these deals to cities all over the country by promising that they'd be an inexpensive way to fund public schools. Well, they didn't work out so great. In fact, experts call these deals toxic swaps because they are so harmful.

6:17Now other cities, and here is an important point, other cities fought back against toxic swaps. Houston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Detroit, these cities acknowledged and said loudly that they were ripped off and they took legal action or threatened to and they got some money back from these fraudulent deals. Not Chicago. Not Chicago. This city just gave the banks what they asked for, and now they want to make the teachers and the school children of Chicago pay the price.

7:04The mayor, Emmanuel, had a choice. Either you stand with the children or you stand with Wall Street. He made the wrong choice. Now why didn't the mayor or the Board of Education he appointed fight the big banks? Well, as we've heard this morning, the mayor's campaign got an awful lot of money from the financial sector.

7:34Do you think that might have had something to do with it? I do. The city of Chicago should sue these banks for fraud and put public pressure on these wealthy banks. And here is what is really awful and what is just not acceptable to my mind in this country, was certainly within the Democratic Party. The mayor has no problem putting pressure on teachers when he wants concessions from them.

8:13He has no problem arm-twisting the parents on the South Side and the West Side when he wants to close their schools. He is really tough, isn't he? Taking on the children and the parents. But he ain't so tough taking on the big money interest on Wall Street. So what this mayor should do instead of beating up on the children and their parents, he should tell these big banks, until you return your fraudulent gains, you will not be doing any more business with the city of Chicago.

8:53By the way, the mayor is not alone. It goes way up to the governor's office as well. Same thing. The governor is threatening to shut down Chicago State University, A historically black university, because he says the state of Illinois is broke. But he forgot to tell the people of Illinois that the state is paying big banks for those toxic swaps as well.

9:24The governor should take legal action and fight back, but my guess is he won't do that either. Let me just simply conclude by saying that somebody... Who has spent much of his political career taking on Wall Street, demanding the breaking up of these huge financial institutions, which are doing so much harm in this country. Helping to lead the fight against the deregulation of Wall Street in the first place.

9:54Let me tell you that if I am elected President of the United States, the Justice Department will go after these Wall Street vultures, and we will go after them in a big way. Their days of looting local communities and state governments will be over. So let me just thank all of the folks here and all of the parents and the children and the teachers in this city for standing up for justice, for standing up for the future of these kids, and I thank them all very, very much.

10:41Thank you. Any questions for Shonda? He's our official spokesman right here. Senator Sanders, actually I have a question for the crowd behind you. I'm sure you guys are all aware, overwhelmingly, African American voters have chosen Secretary Clinton in the race so far. Do you have any comment on that? Do you think it will be different in Chicago or Illinois?

11:12Yes. It's the education. It's the education. And what we have to do as a city is sit down and look at each candidate's platform, look at their background, and look at their record. One thing that's missing in the black communities is we don't want to be a part of the political process because we've had these politicians that is funded by these Wall Street corporations do us so bad and take away the resources and opportunities in our neighborhoods, but we don't feel like we want to vote.

11:43So going forward, we want to restore hope in that by giving them a candidate that will care about them and have the best interests of all people. So it's the education. And if they sit down and look at the platform of Senator Sanders and as well as Hillary Clinton, they will see who's the better candidate. So that's what we're going to do. Can you give us your reaction to the Trump rally being shut down last night? Perhaps because they're chanting their name as the rally is canceled. Well, I'll give you my reaction for the Trump campaign.

12:18what the Trump campaign has been about It is insulting Mexicans in a very crude way. It's been about insulting African-Americans. Let us not for one moment forget, and I think sometimes people do, that Donald Trump was at the forefront of this so-called Bertha movement. And that vicious movement was designed to delegitimize President Barack Obama as President of the United States because of the color of his skin.

12:52and i've always found it very interesting president obama's father was born in kenya my father was born in poland nobody has ever asked me for my birth certificate i think it has something to do with the color of my skin yes so what do you say to people who say some of your supporters are inciting some of this violence i don't think our reporters our supporters are inciting to a candidate who has, in fact, in many ways encouraged violence.

13:33When he talks about, you know, things like, you know, I wish we were in the old days when you could punch somebody in the head. What do you think that says to his supporters? And what happened the other day when some young man was being escorted out, and he was sucker punched. And we have seen other incidents. So the issue now is that Donald Trump... He has got to be loud and clear and tell his supporters that violence at rallies is not what America is about and to end it. Secretary Clinton compared what happened after the Trump shooting, the way that people came together to get over a tragedy, and she compared that to the way that people can begin to come together and then target things like the violence at these Trump rallies.

14:22Do you agree with that sort of comparison she had made? Well, I think what we have got to do as a nation is, in fact, to come together to address the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality. To talk about, you know, and sometimes I think people don't see it, and that's what this campaign is about. We have a mayor here who is talking about shutting down dozens of schools and firing teachers.

14:55Meanwhile, what we have seen in America is a huge increase in wealth. For the top 1% and for the largest corporations. What kind of priorities do we have in this country when we give tax breaks to billionaires, and then cities do not have enough money to run the schools they need? That's what we're going to be changing. What this campaign is about, in fact, is a political revolution.

15:25to bring millions of people into the political process to make sure that every child in America gets the quality education he or she deserves. Let me repeat for the 10 millionth time, this is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Why is anybody talking about shutting down a university, defunding public schools? But to change that, to answer your question, we do need people coming together to say to the billionaire class and Wall Street, they are not going to get it all. These children are going to get it, what they are entitled to.

16:08Mayor Manuel has already said that he is not going to step down. If you get the nomination and ultimately the presidency... How will you work with him to rectify this problem? We will work with these people. We will work with the community. We're going to change national priorities, and instead of giving tax breaks to people who don't need it, we're going to end those loopholes. We're going to fund public education adequately in this country, and we are, most importantly, going to make sure that money gets to the communities who need it the most.

16:43Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, one second. Yes! Yes! That's the decision of the people of Chicago, but this is what I will tell you. I think he has done a very bad job. If I lived in this city, I would be active in that effort. If you criticize Hillary Clinton for her association with Ron Emanuel, what would you have her do? Do you think she should disassociate herself from him?

17:15Look, look, look, in a campaign, as you know, I have a lot of people who support me. Some of them do bad things, so that happens. But when you have somebody as prominent as the mayor of Chicago... As one of her leading supporters, I think she could say, I think she should say, Mayor Emanuel, what you are doing here in Chicago is not good. It is not the kind of mayor that I want to be working with in the future. I reject your endorsement. Okay, thank you all very much.

Source and licence

Recording: File:Rahm Emanuel Press Conference - Bernie Sanders.webm by Bernie Sanders (2016-03-12), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 3.0.

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.