Question from audience member...
HERBERT: So much of your campaign rhetoric is about revolutionary politics. But so much of a president's job is inherently tied to institutions and bureaucracies as they exist.

So, how do you keep the revolutionary spirit alive despite these constraints?

SANDERS: OK. Thank you.
Um, you're right in saying that a lot of the day to day work is going to take place in Capitol Hill and it's messy and there's a lot of negotiating. What I will tell you is that when I was in the House, in a given number of years, I ended up passing more amendments on the floor of the House working with Republicans than any other member of the House. I can work with Republicans.

Just a few years ago, I helped pass, as chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee, the most comprehensive veteran’s legislation in modern history working with John McCain and a number of other Republicans. So if the question is, can I sit down, you know, with conservative people like Chris here and negotiate with them yes, I can do that.

But let me also say this, and this is important. At the end of the day, the powers that be, the powers who control -- people who control the Congress, the big money interests and Wall Street, they are not going to allow the kind of real change that this country needs, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, ending our disastrous trade policies so that corporate America starts investing in this country rather than China, making sure that women do not continue to earn 79 cents on the dollar compared to men, aggressively addressing climate change, making sure that public colleges and universities are tuition-free.

That is not going to be done by Congress itself. That requires a political revolution. And as president of the United States, what I would do is use the bully pulpit in an unprecedented way to rally the American people to demand that the Congress listens to their needs, not just the needs of wealthy campaign contributors.

HAYES: -- President Obama, when he came into office, had this new, unprecedented thing called Obama for America, right, where they basically preserved the campaign organization...

SANDERS: Right.

HAYES: -- and full disclosure, my brother worked for them. He was an organizer. Um, and that proved tough, in a lot of ways, for it to work. Um, part of that, I think, had to do with the inherent tension between being the president of the United States and outside power.

What have you learned from that?

What is the model, if that -- if that seemed to not do what you're talking about.

SANDERS: Actually, I talked to the president about that. And from what he, you know, indicated, it's tough. And it is tough. It is really tough.

Uh, but I think that one of the most important things that a president can do is to help ordinary people come together in a variety of grassroots organizations to put the pressure on the Congress to counterbalance the pressure that Wall Street and wealthy campaign contributors now exert.

For example, let me just give you one example and on this one, I am 100 percent sure that I'm right.

If the young people of this country stood up and were very loud and clear that they are sick and tired of leaving college $30,000, $50,000, $70,000 in debt, that they want public colleges and universities tuition-free, and if millions of them stood up, started emailing, writing and demonstrating, without the slightest doubt, that is exactly what would happen.
So the question is, this is what the American people want.
The question is, how we put together...

HAYES: Right.

SANDERS: -- that type of grassroots organization...

HAYES: But that's a hard thing to do.

SANDERS: It is a hard thing to do. But for the future of this country, that is exactly what has to be done.
Let me say this about the president...

HAYES: Yes.

SANDERS: -- somebody I love and have enormous respect for. I think because he is such a decent guy, in many respects, he actually believed that he could walk into the Oval Office and sit down with Republicans and negotiate in good faith. He was wrong about that. Republicans had no intention of ever negotiating in good faith. What they wanted to do was obstruct, obstruct, obstruct in an unprecedented way.

And it took the president a number of years to learn that lesson. He knows it now and that's why his pen (ph) and executive orders are flying out. I have learned that lesson. I will know that when I get into the Oval Office.

HAYES: Do you predict that would -- whoever the Democratic president, should there be a Democratic president elected in January of next year, do you believe they will be met with functionally that same attitude?

SANDERS: Yes. I think the Republican Party, as I mentioned a moment ago, has moved very, very far to the right. Obviously they are beholden to the wealthy corporate interests, but they are now also beholden to an extreme right wing base, you know, people who are active in the horrific, you know, Trump ethic, on the birther movement, people who are very hostile to immigrants.

You see Trump talking about and referring to Mexicans as racists and criminals, wanting to ban Muslims from coming into this country. And those concepts do have a certain support.

So do I think if I became president that we'd run into that type of obstructionism? Yes, I do.

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