OLBERMANN: Joining me now, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Independent of Vermont. Thanks again for your time, sir.
BERNIE SANDERS: Good to be with you, Keith.
OLBERMANN: So, one month in -- whatever else it has or has not done -- is it fair to say Occupy Wall Street has succeeded in turning liberals into liberals?
SANDERS: Well, I am a progressive, so maybe progressives into progressives. I think what they have done -- which deserves whole lot of credit and respect -- is they are focusing attention on the most powerful, secretive and dangerous entity in the United States of America, and that is Wall Street.
And I think, Keith, if you go any place in America, you find people outraged, that the crooks on Wall Street who caused this terrible, terrible recession -- so much unemployment, people losing their life savings, people losing their homes -- and meanwhile, the guys on Wall Street -- after they bailed them out -- they're doing just great. And most Americans don't think that's right.
OLBERMANN: The president specifically, do you think he's seen the light or a light, or he's been enabled to see the light he always knew was there?
SANDERS: Well, I don't know. I think maybe some of his advisers are showing him some polls out there, which say very clearly that when you stand up for working people and you say,"We have got to create millions of jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure, rebuilding our schools," you know what? That is exactly what the American people want.
And when you stand up and you say -- in the midst of a horrible recession, when Social Security has a $2.5 trillion surplus, can pay out every benefit for the next 25 years -- no, no. We are not going to cut Social Security. We are not going raise the eligibility age of Medicare. We're going to defend those life and death programs.
So, I think what the president is catching onto is that the American people want him to stand up tall and straight on behalf of working families who are struggling desperately today, and take on the big-money interests who are so powerful and the wealthiest people who are doing phenomenally well.
OLBERMANN: Does this translate into legislation, does this enable Congress to pass, say -- the Jobs Bill -- bit by bit, do you think?
SANDERS: If I were a Republican talking about more Wall Street deregulation after Wall Street has caused this recession. If I were a Republican ignoring the fact that we have 25 million Americans unemployed or under-employed, you know what? I would be getting a little bit nervous about going home to my district. So, I would hope that some of these Republicans are waking up and saying, "Yeah, we need a jobs program."
Keith, it is beyond my comprehension how anybody in the United States Congress does not understand that our infrastructure -- roads, bridges, water systems, rail, public transportation, all of it -- crumbling and in desperate need of repair -- we can create millions of jobs doing that. I don't understand how you cannot be supportive of that effort.
OLBERMANN: Do you have, in a big political sense, that the endurance of the protesters on Wall Street and elsewhere in this country has shifted the old "Overton Window," as they call it? Are the parameters of American politics suddenly not just center and right, but actually have a right, a center and a left again in a matter of one month's time?
SANDERS: I think that that's right. And I think when you look at polls -- which tell you that people are much more sympathetic to the Wall Street demonstrators' point of view than they are, for example, to the tea party -- that tells you something. And it's not only the greed and recklessness of Wall Street.
The other important issue that the demonstrators have been raising is both the moral and economic aspects of a grossly unequal distribution of wealth and income. So, when you have the 400 wealthiest people owning more wealth than the bottom half of America, 150 million Americans, you know what? Most Americans will say, "That ain't right. That's wrong. We got to address the issue of the rich getting richer and everybody else getting poorer."
OLBERMANN: So, I haven't asked you this in all the times that we've done interviews since this started in the last month. As a progressive -- as perhaps the leading progressive, certainly in office in this country -- how do you feel about this personally, to see this playing out on the streets in this way for the last month?
SANDERS: I feel very, very good, very positive and very proud of what the issues that these demonstrators are raising.
OLBERMANN: I'm glad.
SANDERS: And I think it's going to have a real impact on this country. And I applaud them for their efforts.
OLBERMANN: I am glad to hear that you feel that way and I think the pride on your part is particularly deserved. The great Independent of Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders. Always a pleasure, sir. Thank you.
SANDERS: Thank you, Keith.
