Vermont Public and VTDigger co-hosted a debate on Wednesday evening with candidates for one of Vermont’s seats in the U.S. Senate.
Incumbent Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Burlington, is seeking a fourth term in the Senate. Previously, he served eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and was the mayor of Burlington in the 1980s. He ran for president in 2016 and 2020. His challenger is Gerald Malloy, a Republican from Weathersfield. Malloy is a U.S. Army veteran and government contractor who ran for Senate in 2022.
During the debate, the candidates disagreed on many topics, such as foreign policy, climate change, and health care.
Below are key highlights, followed by a full transcript of the debate.
Abortion
Sen. Sanders called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade “an absolute disaster.” He said he would work to codify Roe v. Wade “and give everyone in this country – I don’t care where you live – the right to control her own body.” He also said he would support an exception to the filibuster in order to pass such legislation.
When asked whether he would support a nationwide abortion ban if one came before Congress, Malloy said, “I’m not going to support it. I will not support a nationwide ban, because, per the Constitution, it’s a state issue.” This was a change in opinion from his 2022 Senate run when, during an interview with NBC5, he said he would support a nationwide abortion ban.
Climate
Malloy said he believes the climate is changing, but he wants Congress to fund a “bipartisan survey” to further study it before moving forward on plans to address it. He also opposes the Green New Deal. “That’s not the government job, to provide well-paying union jobs. That’s not the job of the United States government.”
Sanders called climate change “an existential threat to the future of this planet.” He said if President Trump is reelected, “the struggle against climate change is over, because not only would the United States be withdrawing from that struggle, so will China, so will Europe, so will countries around the world.” He pointed to his work securing federal funding through the Inflation Reduction Act for people to install solar panels on their houses.
Immigration
A listener submitted a question asking why Sanders was one of six senators to vote against a bipartisan border deal that would have toughened asylum rules and beefed up U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. “The bill did not go anywhere near as far as it had to go in the kind of comprehensive immigration reform that we need,” he said during the debate. “It goes without saying that we need to strengthen our borders,” he said, but added that he wants to establish a clearer path towards citizenship for people who have been in the country for decades and are serving their communities.
Malloy said the fentanyl crisis in Vermont and across the country is due to the country’s border issues. “Crime and drugs are pouring into Vermont, northern and southern borders. It’s actually time to take action against Mexico and China and start supporting our law enforcement community related to fentanyl,” he said. He added that he is not in favor of “trying to deport every single illegal immigrant that entered this country, whatever that number is – 10, 20 million, I’m not in favor of that. So there were some areas where I differ from President Trump on this.”
Transcript
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and have been lightly edited for concision and clarity. They may contain errors, so please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
Mikaela Lefrak: Welcome to the Vermont Public and VTDigger U.S. Senate debate. I’m Mikaela Lefrak, the host of Vermont Edition on Vermont Public.
Shaun Robinson: And I’m Shaun Robinson, a state government and economy reporter for VTDigger. Live today in the Vermont Public studio in Winooski, we have Sen. Bernie Sanders of Burlington, an independent. He’s seeking a fourth term in the Senate. Previously, he served eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and was the mayor of Burlington. Sanders ran for president in 2016 and 2020.
And Republican nominee Gerald Malloy, a U.S. Army veteran and government contractor from Weathersfield. He also ran for Senate in 2022. Welcome to the program.
Bernie Sanders: Thank you.
Gerald Malloy: Thank you, Shaun, thank you, Mikaela, great to be here.
Mikaela Lefrak: Vermont Public, through its Citizens Agenda, and VTDigger have both been soliciting topics and questions for the candidates. You’ll hear some of those questions that were submitted to our news outlets throughout tonight’s debate. And here’s the format that we’re going to use today, which the candidates have agreed to.
Shaun Robinson: In the first segment, we’ll ask common questions to both candidates from our audiences and our newsrooms. They’ll each have one minute to answer. We will also ask short follow-up questions.
Mikaela Lefrak: In the second segment, the candidates will ask each other questions. They’ll have 30 seconds to ask a question and one minute to answer. They’ll also have time to ask follow-ups.
Shaun Robinson: In the third segment, we’ll return to questions from our audience and our newsrooms. Candidates will have one minute to respond.
Mikaela Lefrak: We’ll follow that with a lightning round. The candidates will have 10 seconds to respond.
Shaun Robinson: We’ll conclude with one-minute closing statements from each candidate. We used an online name generator to decide who will go first and Gerald Malloy, you’ll begin. As a reminder in this first section, please limit your initial response to one minute.
Affordability
Mikaela Lefrak: We’re going to start today’s debate with the issue of affordability. A listener named Dave wrote to us through our Citizens Agenda to say that inflation has decimated people’s buying power and their savings state and federal taxes have him feeling like many people can’t afford to live in Vermont anymore. As senator, what would you do to address Dave’s concerns about inflation and taxation? Gerald Malloy, we’ll start with you.
Gerald Malloy: Thank you, Mikaela. So inflation, what’s been happening here over the last four years in particular, have had massive overspending, but $2 trillion a year clip. We’re at a $36 trillion deficit debt at this point, going back a few years, that overspending led to the 40-year high inflation that we’re all experiencing now, it’s become painful to go shopping for groceries. My opponent’s talked about lowering health care, education, housing costs for his whole career, that’s not happened. They’ve all soared. It gets back to policies to include trying to kill the oil and gas industry. And it gets back to overspending, dumping that much, trillions of dollars into the economy. Economics 101, from Milton Friedman, dumping that much into the economy. You’re going to get inflation. We’re still feeling the results for that. The progressive left, my opponent’s part of that, really have done a horrible job for the last four years, and Americans are struggling. You see, you can see the job reports, where, where, where, there’s more people that maybe it looks like the jobs, more unemployment, less unemployment. That’s actually people taking a second and third job right now.
Mikaela Lefrak: That is time. And I want to ask you a follow-up here about something that you said in your VTDigger candidate questionnaire. You were asked about affordability, and you said, “I will bring jobs to Vermont. A socialist without business experience will not bring well paying jobs to Vermont.” How exactly you’re going to bring jobs to Vermont, specifically?
Gerald Malloy: Business experience. I have 16 years of business experience. I’ve got relationships across, across business. I’ve been actually working last 16 years, developing growing jobs. So I have relationships. And what I’ve talked about many times is actually developing, with our Republican governor, a semiconductor and energy tech hub here in Vermont. I know there’s a great interest in the climate, so take that interest and develop an energy tech hub to develop future energy solutions that are clean and safe and affordable and reliable. I can bring business here. A few iterations ago, Senate candidate running against Senator Sanders said he was a socialist. Businesses are not coming to Vermont.
Mikaela Lefrak: Well, I’d like to turn the question to you, Sen. Sanders, what would you do to address our listener, Dave’s concerns about inflation and taxation.
Bernie Sanders: The very good news is that inflation rates are going down significantly, and in my view, the major cause of inflation has to do with the breaking of supply chains, but also the incredible level of corporate greed that we’re seeing right now. Mr. Malloy mentioned the high prices that we pay in the grocery store. He’s right. Check out the level of corporate profits in the food industry and the incredibly high prices they are charging the American people. Chairman of the Health, Education Labor Committee, we’ve had some success, beginning to have some success, at an event with President Biden yesterday, in lowering the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs. Our health care expenditures in this country are double what they are in any other major country on earth. And you know why? Because the function of the American health care system is not to provide quality care to all, it’s to make huge profits for the drug companies and the insurance companies. So the result of that is we pay double what any other major country on earth pays for health care. So we are making some progress. We’ve got a long way to go.
Mikaela Lefrak: I know, Senator, that addressing the country’s wealth inequality has long been one of your priorities, and you’ve argued for years for additional income taxes, taxing the rich. In Vermont this year, state legislators proposed an additional income tax on folks who live here who earn more than $500,000 a year. That didn’t go anywhere. I’m curious if you think there are ways to move these types of taxes forward, or if it’s time to try something new.
Bernie Sanders: Well, it’s not a question of trying something new. You’re living in a country which is increasingly becoming an oligarchy. You have three people on top who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You have more income and wealth inequality than we’ve ever had in the history of America. You got the top 1% earning – owning more wealth than the bottom 90% and these people have enormous political power. That’s why you’re seeing billionaires spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on the current presidential campaign. We have got to take on that oligarchy. That is the major political struggle that we have right now to create an economy and a government that works for all of us, not just the people on top.
Mikaela Lefrak: Thank you. Over to you, Shaun.
Climate change
Shaun Robinson: Climate change continues to fuel extreme weather throughout the world and right here in Vermont. As VTDigger and Vermont Public have reported, warmer oceans have launched more powerful storms, such as Hurricane Beryl, the aftermath of which led to widespread flooding across central and northern Vermont this July. A warmer atmosphere, meanwhile, has led to greater precipitation throughout the Northeast. What can and should Congress do now to address this growing threat to Vermont? Senator Sanders.
Bernie Sanders: You’re right. It is an existential threat to the future of this planet. I’ve got four kids, seven grandchildren, and I worry very much what this country and the planet will look like if we don’t get a handle on transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels. I am proud that under the Biden administration, I work closely with the president, we put more money into transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel than any time, than any country has ever done. It’s a start. We’ve got a long way to go. I worry very much, Shaun, that there is a presidential candidate out there who literally believes that climate change is a hoax. So let me be clear, if Trump wins this election, the struggle against climate change is over, because not only would the United States be withdrawing from that struggle, so will China, so will Europe, so will countries around the world. Now I’m also proud that as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, I passed a legislation called solar for all, and what that will do is make it easier for working class people to get solar panels on their rooftops, not only to protect the environment, but to cut their electric bills by up to 80%. That was a $7 billion provision, $62 million coming into the state of Vermont.
Shaun Robinson: Thank you. I did want to follow up on legislation that you’ve talked about a lot, is the Green New Deal proposal that you’ve made. It hasn’t made much headway, even under a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate. If the party loses the presidency and/or the Senate next month, what can you realistically accomplish in Congress to address the threat of climate change?
Bernie Sanders: Well, first of all, I would disagree with you. I think there – the fact that we have put more money into sustainable energy, including my legislation for solar panels on rooftops, we have made some progress. If Republicans gain control of the House and the Senate, if Trump is the White House, wins the White House, basically, in my view, the fight against climate change is over, and I worry very much about the future of the planet.
Shaun Robinson: Thank you. Gerald Malloy, what can and should Congress do now to address the growing threat to Vermont?
Gerald Malloy: Sure. Well, actually, going back a couple of things. You know, the senator mentioned the taxes – you know, 1%, top 1% actually pay 45% of the tax revenue coming into our country. And again, health care, that’s been his signature issue for 40 years plus, and it’s done nothing but gone up. Failure. He hasn’t, hasn’t succeeded in – it’s all been grandstanding. It’s not been developing solutions and actual legislation to implement change in our health care system. That hasn’t happened. Climate, I want to tell you, you know, we had flooding this past year, I actually visited Barre, Lyndonville, St. Johnsbury, Williamstown, Kirby, went there myself, saw the flooding that’s going on. And I actually did a lot of research. I’m retired Army West Point grad, I’ve worked with the Army Corps of Engineers my whole, my whole career. The way an Army Corps of Engineer project happens is a member of Congress presents it as a project and then does the work to actually see it to become funded. That’s what Vermont needs. I will do that for Vermont to get Army Corps of Engineer projects funded and completed to mitigate the flooding that’s been happening here.
Shaun Robinson: Thank you. Yeah, we’ll stay with climate briefly for a follow up. In VTDigger’s candidate survey you wrote, “Congress should appoint a bipartisan U.S. government study to present facts related to climate change, and then Congress should make laws to address climate change based on the factual findings.” There are already myriad scientific reports that make clear the threats posed by climate change. What evidence, then, is missing that you would need before taking action?
Gerald Malloy: Well, like I talked about, I know there is climate change, I agree with that, and I want to develop solutions within America for the capability to have clean, safe, reliable, affordable solutions here in America. This gets that back to a bigger issue of free enterprise and industry generating solutions, versus the government pushing an agenda onto the market. That is not going to work. We’re actually supporting China. We don’t have the natural resources that we need to actually implement this whole policy. You mentioned the Green New Deal –
Shaun Robinson: Just if I could briefly. So is there something missing from those reports?
Gerald Malloy: I would like a bipartisan report, bipartisan survey, and then we can all agree how to move forward. The Green New Deal, if anybody’s ever read that, that’s not the government jobs to prepare to provide well-paying union jobs. That’s not the job of the United States government.
Bernie Sanders: Can I respond?
Shaun Robinson: I think we need to move on, Senator. We have a lot to get through.
FEMA’s disaster response
Mikaela Lefrak: But our next question does continue us on this track around the climate. I’d love to hear both of your thoughts on this. It’s around disaster preparedness and recovery. It’s a subject that obviously has hit very close to home here in Vermont. Vermont Public published two investigations this year that spotlighted systemic failures at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and many people have blamed FEMA’s bureaucracy following the 2023 flooding in Vermont for impeding the ability of individuals and towns to access recovery funds. I would like to know how you would grade FEMA’s disaster response overall, and what you would do to make it better before another disaster strikes, as it inevitably will due to climate change. Gerald Malloy.
Gerald Malloy: Sure, so retired from the Army, and then I worked for about five years colocated with DHS and FEMA in Boston. I’ve actually worked on about 20 presidential disaster disaster declarations. They fall into the Stafford Act, from Vermont. There does need to be improvement in terms of the processes, and there needs to be improvement in understanding from the people, but what FEMA does and does not do, and how the state organization interacts with FEMA to get better results, I will say I talked about Plainfield. I don’t know if you went to the flooding in Plainfield. There was a bridge there. I was very impressed with how that community came together to respond to that. I went back. I don’t know if it was a month or two later, they had replaced that bridge. That bridge was replaced. That’s fantastic, but there are a lot of shortfalls in the recovery effort, and there’s definitely room for improvement in processes.
Mikaela Lefrak: Well, speaking about what FEMA does and does not do. President Trump, in the past month, has repeatedly criticized FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene in Florida and Georgia and North Carolina. He said the federal government did not have enough funds to adequately respond. He also said that FEMA uses disaster relief money on “housing for illegal immigrants.” That is not the case. There is a separate pot of funding for those uses. But I’m curious to hear your thoughts on that and the fact that many people are calling for reforms to FEMA. Do you think that the agency needs to be reformed at a structural level?
Gerald Malloy: Absolutely. And I can tell you know, from the Army and in the industry, you’re always looking for ways to improve yourself, particularly after a major event, I will say we’ve got a $36 trillion debt. My opponent has been part of that over his last 34 years in Congress. That’s absolutely unsustainable. So, you know, we don’t, we actually, I was going to say we don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. But you know, right now, we’ve. But we’re going to look at have $4 trillion of revenue next year, we’re going to be paying $1 trillion just to cover the interest on that.
Mikaela Lefrak: Just 10 seconds here, do you agree with former President Donald Trump’s criticisms of FEMA, saying that it was inadequately funded to to respond to Hurricane Helene?
Gerald Malloy: I don’t know the funding details of FEMA. I don’t know those.
Mikaela Lefrak: Thank you.
Bernie Sanders: Let me just say, obviously, we want Vermont to have the ability to respond to these disasters, and we’ve got to reform FEMA. I think the bureaucracy is sometimes a little bit cumbersome. I have worked with communities to make sure that they got money in a lot faster way that they needed for their infrastructure repair, but Mr. Malloy has not responded to the fundamental issue. You don’t need a bipartisan commission to determine whether climate change is real. Every bloody scientist in the world who has studied the issue understands it’s real, understands it’s an existential threat. And we got, as I said, a presidential candidate who thinks it’s a hoax, and you’ve got many Republicans who share that point of view. So to my mind, as somebody who is concerned about future generations, we’re going to have to transform our energy system. It’s not going to be easy, but we can create millions of good paying jobs, moving to sustainable energy, moving to making sure that our communities are able to withstand future disasters. But this is a fundamental issue. There’s no getting around the reality of it. It’s climate change that’s caused by human activity, carbon emission. You don’t need any more commissions to study it. We need to act.
Mikaela Lefrak: Well, to the issue of FEMA. You co-signed a letter with Rep. Becca Balint and Sen. Peter Welch requesting that they send you a lot of information on how they could move administrative responsibilities and resources to communities directly affected, like Vermont. You requested a response by Oct. 11. I’m curious if you’ve heard back and how much of a priority this is for you.
Bernie Sanders: It is a priority, because, sadly enough, and one of the things that breaks my heart. I also went to many of the communities Mr. Malloy talked about. And when, you know, when you your house is flooded, when your part of your house in Plainfield ends up in the river, you know it, what is heartbreaking is to, you know, I wish I could say to these people, “You suffered a tragedy, it’s not going to happen again.” One would be dishonest to say that, all right? It will happen again unless we get a handle on climate change. So in terms of FEMA, we need to have more local input. We need to expedite the way we get funding into communities. We need to break through the bureaucracy. But fundamentally, we need to recognize climate change is real. We need to transform our energy system and work with the rest of the world.
Mikaela Lefrak: Briefly, have you received a response to that letter?
Bernie Sanders: I’m not aware that we have.
Health insurance costs
Shaun Robinson: Thank you. David, a VTDigger reader, notes that, “One of the largest inflationary pressures on education budgets is the price of health insurance.” It’s also busting the budgets of many Vermont families. As VTDigger reported this summer, average premium prices for individual marketplace plans in Vermont are among the highest in the country, and rising by double-digit rates. What can Congress do to make health insurance more affordable for Vermonters? Sen. Sanders.
Bernie Sanders: Well, I have led the fight to try to end the absurdity of the United States being the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right. Fifty miles north of here, somehow, in Canada and countries all over the world, they are providing quality care to all of their people and spending 50% of what we are per capita. So I have introduced Medicare for all legislation. We’re having some success right now, taking on the very powerful pharmaceutical industry and lowering the cost of prescription drugs? Let me tell you, Shaun, this is not a health care debate. Nobody in their right mind thinks that the current health care system is anything but broken. We are engaged in a political struggle with insurance companies and drug companies. Drug companies alone have 1,800 paid lobbyists in Washington, D.C. These guys make huge campaign contributions, and one day, sooner than later, we will finally do what every other country does, and guarantee health care to all people. And we can do that, according to numerous studies, without spending a nickel that we’re spending now, because the function of health care should not be to make drug companies and insurance companies tens of billions a year in profit. It should be to provide quality care for all.
Shaun Robinson: Thank you. Yeah, we’ll stay for a minute with your advocacy in this area. You’ve also talked a lot for years about providing more funding to rebuild and expand rural health care infrastructure in Vermont, including hospitals. You may be aware of a recent consultants’ report that recommended a slate of reforms that the consultants said are necessary to forestall insolvency at some hospitals in Vermont, including possibly consolidating services. With these challenges, how can rural health care in Vermont be expanded sustainably, and can we afford to grow a system that’s already beleaguered?
Bernie Sanders: The answer is, we’re spending, again, double what any other major country is spending on health care. Now what I am very proud of is that what we have done here in Vermont, and I’ve played a very active role in that, is greatly expand community health centers, which is one of the more cost-effective ways of providing primary care and dental care to our people. About 188,000 Vermonters take advantage of community health centers, 66 of them located all over the state. We’re trying to get one down in Brattleboro, so we’ll have one in every area of the state. Cost-effective, good quality health care, dental care, mental health counseling, lower cost prescription drugs. So that’s one of the areas that we’ve got to work. As chairman of the committee, we’re trying –
Shaun Robinson: Thank you, Senator. Gerald Malloy, what can Congress do to make health insurance more affordable?
Gerald Malloy: So this election is actually about change and results. And we just heard Sen. Sanders. He’s been talking about health care for a good 40 years. Health care costs have soared. We’re not getting results. Okay, I would actually go back to 2014 right here in Vermont, when Democrat Gov. Peter Shumlin went way down the road to implement universal single payer tax health care here in Vermont, to his credit, he pulled the plug on that because he was not going to — his words – not going to impose that level of new costs on all Vermonters, and he recognized that the state of Vermont was not capable of running a health care system for the whole state of Vermont. Again, what I mentioned earlier about grandstanding, it does no good to get in front of the pharmaceutical or the health care industry and berate an executive and then do nothing about it. This is about legislation, and the work behind legislation to actually implement some change in terms of transparency competition, if there are thoughts about monopolistic or collusion activities, to do some laws to actually prevent that. I would go further to look at the FDA, and I would say one quick thing the IRA, what’s going on right now is a $5 billion behind the scenes payout to insurers right now so that folks don’t get a raise premium bill right now. That’s that’s happening right now. It’s wrong.
Shaun Robinson: Thank you. We’ll stay for a moment with what you’re discussing here. Sen. Sanders, as you mentioned, has taken to task the pharmaceutical companies, including Novo Nordisk, for what he’s called, quote, outrageously high prices of diabetes and weight loss medications, Ozempic and Wegovy. Those prices, Sen. Sanders has said, could cause tens of thousands of preventable deaths a year. Do you agree with your opponent on the substance of that? And with his approach of bringing these pharmaceutical leaders…
Gerald Malloy: Taking them to task doesn’t do anything. It’s about legislation. And you know, why does it cost a billion dollars through the FDA to get a new drug to market? That’s some of the things that should, should be happening now.
Abortion
Mikaela Lefrak: I want to move on to abortion. Vermonters have codified abortion access in the state Constitution, but many people in the state have told us they are concerned about abortion access in other parts of the country. A Vermonter in Windham County, for example, told us that “restoring women’s rights to abortion is her top concern this election season.” Another person wrote to us to say, there is “too much access to abortion in our country.” So we’re hearing both sides of the issue here. Should Congress act to expand or curtail abortion access on the federal level? Gerald Malloy.
Gerald Malloy: No. I respect women’s rights. I respect women’s health care. Respect to laws in Vermont, one of the foundational principles of our Constitution is to let the states and the people decide. That’s what the Supreme Court did in overturning Roe v. Wade. I will support that. If legislation comes up to the U.S. Senate, I’m not going to support it. I will not support a nationwide ban, because, per the Constitution, it’s a state issue.
Mikaela Lefrak: That’s a change in opinion from 2022 during your last Senate run, you were asked whether you would support a total nationwide abortion ban, and you said, “I would, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen.” So you have changed your mind on that.
Gerald Malloy: I’m not sure when that was, but if you go back –
Mikaela Lefrak: 2022, in an NBC interview during your run for Senate.
Gerald Malloy: But what I want to tell you when I decided to run in 2022, in March, I posted on my website, my platform, that I thought Roe v. Wade would be overturned, that it should be overturned per the Constitution, and it was. Right now, running for U.S. Senate, I’m not going to support sweeping legislation pro or con at the U.S. Senate. It’s a state issue.
Mikaela Lefrak: Thank you. And Sen. Sanders.
Bernie Sanders: Well, I would think it’s fair to say that Mr. Malloy and I have a significant difference of opinion on this issue. I think the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade is was an absolute disaster. It took away women’s constitutional right to control their own bodies. And it is not acceptable to say that in Vermont, yeah, women have the right to control their own bodies, but in Mississippi or Alabama, they don’t. That’s a constitutional right. Women have struggled for, since the inception of this country to gain first class citizenship, and I don’t know anything more basic and fundamental about being a first class citizen, an equal citizen, than having the right to control your own body. So I will do everything I can to undo the damage that this right wing Supreme Court has done in Roe v. Wade and work with my colleagues to codify Roe v. Wade and give everyone in this country, I don’t care where you live, the right to control her own body.
Mikaela Lefrak: So, Senator, let’s talk about the filibuster here. It’s a long standing rule that requires 60 votes for legislation to pass in the Senate, rather than a simple 50-vote majority. You have been skeptical of changing the filibuster in the past, but you’ve said that you are open to an exception for abortion rights. I’m wondering if you could tell us why, and if your feelings more broadly on the filibuster have changed.
Bernie Sanders: Not only abortion rights, but voting rights as well.
Mikaela Lefrak: Those two issues specifically.
Bernie Sanders: For a start, and I’m willing to look at other issues as well. What happens right now? Well, in terms of abortion rights, I mean, I think we cannot deny women a fundamental right to control their own bodies. This is an issue that has to be done with dealt with. Unfortunately, we have very, very few Republicans, I think two, in the United States Senate who will support us on that issue. So we’re not going to get the 60 votes that we need. So I’m willing to look at dealing with the filibuster on that issue. Terms of voting rights, we have states all over the country who are working aggressively to deny young people, people of color, people with disabilities, the right to vote. And if there’s anything that makes us a democracy is that every person in this country who’s 18 years of age and a citizen has the right to vote. So I work on that issue as well.
Mikaela Lefrak: Thank you, Senator.
Questions from the candidates
Shaun Robinson: The candidates will now have an opportunity to ask each other questions. The questions should not be longer than 30 seconds, and the responses are limited to 60 seconds. As a reminder, you can both ask brief follow up questions. Sen. Sanders, we’ll start with you.
Bernie Sanders: Mr. Malloy, Donald Trump lies all of the time. He fomented an insurrection so that for the first time in American history, we did not have a peaceful transfer of power. He thinks that climate change is a hoax, and he thinks that women in America should not be able to control their own bodies. Just out of curiosity, why are you supporting Donald Trump for president?
Gerald Malloy: I’m supporting President Trump for president because I’ve looked at what the progressive left has done to – and you’re part of that – for the last four years. We’ve had 40-year-high inflation, record high gas prices. We have two new wars. We have, we have a wide open southern border. No one’s traveled around Vermont more than I have the last two and a half years. I’ve probably met 75,000 Vermonters. We have a fentanyl crisis right here, right now. Congress is not doing anything about it. You’ve been a member of Congress for 34 years. You’ve watched this. People are dying. OK? It’s time for action, not inaction. And President Trump had initiatives to secure our border, then COVID hit. You had 1.9% inflation rate. We didn’t have two new wars. So I’m not going to vote. This is a binary decision. I’m not going to vote for Kamala Harris. I got to tell you, Vermonters, we should be concerned about First, Second and Fourth Amendment rights, because they’re endangered by this next administration if Kamala Harris becomes president.
Bernie Sanders: You didn’t answer the question. And the question is that you have an individual who lies all of the time –
Gerald Malloy: Your opinion.
Bernie Sanders: Not in my opinion.
Gerald Malloy: Yes, in your opinion.
Bernie Sanders: Really?
Gerald Malloy: Yes.
Bernie Sanders: Alright. Do you think –
Gerald Malloy: And I don’t think you should be calling him a liar because that kind of rhetoric has led to two assassination attempts.
Bernie Sanders: Hold it, hold it, hold it. I do not. I know. I’m – you’re looking at somebody who’s ever run a negative ad in the state of Vermont.
Gerald Malloy: You call people pathological liar.
Bernie Sanders: You know why? Because he’s a pathological liar.
Mikaela Lefrak: Do you have a follow-up question for him?
(Crosstalk)
Gerald Malloy: … for four years and never delivers on it. That’s a pathological liar.
Mikaela Lefrak: We’re trying to have a debate here, not a shouting contest. Do you have a follow-up question?
Bernie Sanders: Follow-up question is that Donald Trump fomented an insurrection to prevent the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history. Do you think that’s appropriate?
Gerald Malloy: I will certify the election when I’m a United States senator. I’ve spoken many times, people that broke the law should be tried, and have been tried and prosecuted for breaking the law.
Bernie Sanders: He fomented that insurrection.
Mikaela Lefrak: Alright, do you have a question for Sen. Sanders?
Gerald Malloy: Yes, I do. Sen. Sanders, you are 83 and seeking another six-year term. You’ve been in Congress 34 years, and have delivered one bill of significance other than post offices. That was 10 years ago, and you co-sponsored into law with Sen. McCain. You have talked more than 40 years about health care, housing, education, and you have not delivered legislation into law to improve these areas, their costs have all skyrocketed. Would you please discuss now – how now, at age 83, as an independent socialist, you are all of a sudden going to start delivering legislative results, not just talk, to lower health care, housing and education.
Bernie Sanders: Let’s not be an ageist, Mr. Malloy. It’s true, I am 83, I don’t know how old you are.
Gerald Malloy: I’m 62.
Bernie Sanders: Alright, you’re a very young, young man, but I am feeling just fine. Thank you very much. We don’t need ageism here. Now in terms of my record, let’s see. When COVID hit the United States, and Donald Trump, by the way, played a horrendous role in helping us prepare for that terrible pandemic. As chairman of the budget committee, I helped pass the American Rescue Plan, and that plan put money into people’s pockets who had no money to feed their kids. That money put money into hospitals, into universities, into colleges. It prevented the eviction of people. It lowered the childhood poverty rate by 40%. In fact, some people regard it as the most consequential piece of legislation in the modern history of this country. I helped write that. Alright? In terms of what we’re doing here in Vermont, I mentioned the expansion of community health centers. We expanded community-based outreach clinics for veterans in Brattleboro and in Newport. We are lowering right now the cost of prescription drugs. If you’re a senior right now, you’re not going to pay more than $35 for insulin, something that I worked very, very hard on. We’re lowering the cost of asthma inhalers. We’re taking on the drug companies and having some success, not as much as I would want, in lowering the cost of prescription drugs.
Mikaela Lefrak: Thanks, Senator. Do you have a follow-up?
Gerald Malloy: I do, yeah, $1.9 trillion for ARPA. That’s the reason we have the 40 year high inflation that’s still with us today. One drug, lowered the price. 4,200 have gone up. Would you please answer the question, how are you actually going to lower housing, health care and education costs through legislation?
Bernie Sanders: Well, we’re going to pass, what we do right now is passing the Community Health Center Act, which – don’t look at me – where we are expanding community health centers. We’re bringing more doctors, nurses, mental health providers into our communities, which will finally provide health care for the people who need it. And by the way, when we talk about education, it is my view that it is somewhat absurd that young people are graduating college deeply in debt, that if you want to graduate in medical school, you may be four or $500,000 in debt. That does not make any sense to me in a competitive global economy where we want the best educated workforce that we can have, so we are working hard on all of those issues.
Mikaela Lefrak: OK, I would like for each of you to have time to ask the other person one more question. So Sen. Sanders, it’s your turn.
Bernie Sanders: The United States is the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people. The major drug companies last year made over $100 billion in profit, pay their executives huge compensation packages. Insurance companies make huge profits as well. Do you believe that the United States of America should join every other major country and provide health care to all people as a human right?
Gerald Malloy: You know, I mentioned here in Vermont they tried universal health care. It did not, it did not work. One of the things the senator never talks about is, if that were to ever happen, it would be a huge tax increase on all Americans. We’re already paid too much taxes. And, you know, we – I’m not in favor. What I am in favor of is fixing the current systems that we have. We have, we have Medicare, we have Medicaid. And again, if there are issues with health care, they we can enact legislation. That’s what Congress is supposed to do, enact legislation to make it better.
Bernie Sanders: Well, the fact of the matter is, we’re spending twice as much as the people of other countries, and the reason for that is our system is not designed to provide quality care, but to make huge profits for the insurance companies and the drug companies. I am leading the effort now. You think that I’ve been there 40 years, very easy, ain’t so easy when you’re taking on the Republican leadership, which is owned by the pharmaceutical industry and by the insurance companies, but we’re doing our best, and we’re having some success. Bottom line is, our current health care system is failing. Health care is a human right. We’ve got to do what every other major country is doing.
Mikaela Lefrak: Do you have a response?
Gerald Malloy: Yeah, you’ve had 34 years to fix it and you have not.
(Crosstalk)
Bernie Sanders: Well, you know.
Gerald Malloy: It’s called bipartisan, working across…
Bernie Sanders: I’ve also had, I’ve also had a Republican House of Representatives that it’s done less than any House in the modern history of this country. So I wish I could tell you, you know, I was the dictator of the world. You know, I’m not the dictator of the world. I’m one out of 100 senators, and I think my record stands up very well.
Gerald Malloy: One bill.
Bernie Sanders: No, it’s not one bill. It is many, many. It’s not true.
Gerald Malloy: And some post offices. I get it.
Bernie Sanders: No.
Mikaela Lefrak: You have a chance to ask one more question.
Gerald Malloy: OK, Sen. Sanders, you’ve been a member of Congress for 34 years, and as a member of Congress, you’ve been part of the 11,100% increase in the national debt from about $3 trillion to $36 trillion, absolutely unsustainable. It endangers Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, our entire economy. If elected for another six-year term. Do you have any intentions of seeking to address this unsustainable debt, or is it going to be your intent to bankrupt the United States government and collapse our economy?
Bernie Sanders: No, I think you’re right. And under President Trump, we saw a very substantial increase in the national debt, as you know. Under President Biden, we’re seeing some reductions, but here’s what you got. You have a tax system which is totally corrupt, because big money has enormous power in Washington. So we have a system where billionaires have an effective tax rate lower than truck drivers and nurses. That is absurd. So when you have massive levels of income in wealth inequality, when the very rich are getting richer, you know what? You may not like it. The billionaire class may not like it. I’m going to do my best to make sure that they start paying their fair share of taxes. Tell you another area I think we could save money. I think there is a lot of bureaucracy throughout the federal government that we have to look at, and I’m trying to do that. But one area that is not looked at is the Pentagon. We’re spending a trillion dollars a year on the military. The Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not submitted to an independent audit. There are massive cost overruns in the Pentagon, huge amounts of profiteering on the part of the military industrial complex. I believe we can continue to have the strongest military in the world without spending a trillion dollars a year and spending 10 times more than the next 10 nations combined.
Mikaela Lefrak: Do you have a follow-up?
Gerald Malloy: Sure, you know 2019 to right now, the debt has gone up about 60%, unacceptable. We’re on a $2 trillion a year clip of overspending right now in this administration. If there are loopholes that billionaires are taking advantage in our tax system, Congress should fix those, but that hasn’t happened. And our tax rates go from 10% to 37% you never hear that. Like I said, the 1% top 1% are paying 45% already. Where’s the legislation?
Bernie Sanders: Well, there’s this legislation, but what you’re ignoring here is that your friends in the Republican Party are owned by the very wealthiest people in this country and resist day and night – and Democrats as well – but resist any effort to make the tax system, I shouldn’t say any of it, but significant efforts to make the tax system more fair and more progressive.
Foreign policy
Shaun Robinson: We’ll now return to questions from Vermont Public’s Citizens Agenda and VTDigger readers. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions or noted particular issues you want the candidates to address. Just a reminder, candidates, please limit your answers to one minute. Now to the Middle East, more than a year after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the war with Gaza grinds on with tens of thousands of Palestinians dead. Israel has since responded to Hezbollah provocations by opening a new front in Lebanon and is widely expected to conduct retaliatory strikes on Iran. Gerald melody, you said the U.S. should support Israel and ensure its security. How far should the U.S. go in doing so?
Gerald Malloy: Well, what you’re talking about is absolute foreign policy failure. It’s one of the two main failures of the current progressive left administration from Afghanistan that led to war in Europe. And actually funding, turning back on funding to Iran, which is now developing nuclear weapons, rejoining a nuclear agreement, treaty with no teeth in it. So we’re actually funding Iran’s nuclear weapon program. And what we’ve done through funding Iran, again, is funded Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis which conducted that horrific terrorist attack. So I’m in favor. I stand by Israel, sovereign nation. They were attacked by terrorists. I’m in favor of Israel defending itself and ensuring its own security, and for the United States to provide weapons and support for that. I pray for peace every single day. I can’t stand the antisemitism that’s been going on in this country. It’s a disgrace, and it really, really bothers me that all three of our congressional delegation from Vermont protested the Israeli prime minister when he went to Congress. There are American hostages being held right now.
Shaun Robinson: Thank you. Well, we’ll hear from Sen. Sanders on this now. Senator, you’ve long supported Israel’s right to exist, and in fact, you lived there for a month, for a time in your 20s, but over the last year, you’ve become perhaps the most vocal critic in the Senate of Israel’s actions in Gaza. Most recently, you introduced a measure seeking to block the sale of more than $20 billion worth of U.S. weaponry to Israel, calling such sales immoral and illegal. Do you think the U.S. should remain an ally of Israel’s, or do you believe the country’s values no longer align with ours?
Bernie Sanders: Well, let’s be clear. A year ago, Oct. 7, Hamas, a terrible terrorist organization, committed an horrific terrorist attack on Israel, killing 1,200 innocent people, taking hundreds of people hostage. Israel, like every other country on Earth, had a right to defend itself against Hamas. But what Netanyahu, right-wing, extremist government, which contains some out and out anti-Palestinian racists, has done is not just go to war against Hamas, it has gone to war in an unprecedented way against the entire Palestinian people. So in a little over a year, you have 40,000 people who are dead, two thirds of whom are women, children and the elderly. One hundred thousand are wounded, two thirds of them women, children and the elderly. You have seen the infrastructure destroyed, housing destroyed. Every university in Gaza has been bombed. Health care systems systematically destroyed, and now on top of all of that horror. According to all of the humanitarian organizations, Israel is blocking humanitarian aid. We’re looking at massive malnutrition on for children and the starvation of thousands and thousands of children. Blocking humanitarian aid is a violation of international and American law. Israel should not be getting American support as they, as long as they continue to act like that.
Mikaela Lefrak: Sen. Sanders, you have voted against spending packages that included aid for Ukraine, because the legislation would have also sent money to Israel, whose actions, as you just discussed, you strongly oppose. Would you have voted differently if that money was decoupled? And I’m also curious what you envision as a realistic end point to the war in Ukraine, as the conflict approaches its third year.
Bernie Sanders: It’s a terrible war. It’s a horrible war, and I was, at the very beginning of that war, talking to people very high up in the Department of Defense who knew that Putin, who is a disgusting human being, has his own imperialist aims. I suppose he wants to bring back the old Soviet Union territory, and he launched this terrible attack against, you know, against Ukraine. It – I am supporting, I am supporting the United States efforts to protect the independence of Ukraine, because if, if Putin is successful in Ukraine, I fear that other eastern European countries might be next, including Poland. So that’s not my view. That’s what these countries fear. They fear Putin, and I think he has got to be stopped.
Mikaela Lefrak: Thank you. And Gerald Malloy, on the subject of Ukraine, Iran, North Korea, China, they’ve all stepped up their military aid to Russia. And the U.S. just recently confirmed that North Korean troops are in Russia training near the Ukrainian border, and meanwhile, NATO allies are bracing for U.S. support for Ukraine to shrink over the next year if Donald Trump is reelected president. What is your opinion on the U.S.’ current level of financial and diplomatic support to Ukraine?
Gerald Malloy: Well, I support Ukraine. I do not support throwing money over into a black hole. We’ve spent a couple hundred billion dollars. I do not support that. What this is about is foreign policy failure from our current administration dating back to with to the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The whole world watched that. It was an absolute debacle, very un-American. We left our allies and tens of thousands of Afghanistan people high and dry, probably dead by now, turned that country and billions of dollars of equipment over to heroin producing terrorists, harboring and human-rights-violating organization. That led to the attack that prompted Putin to attack Russia because he saw a weakness in the United States.
Bernie Sanders: Can I respond to that? Just the idea of blaming the United States for everything? Putin is an evil disgusting guy, you know, and he has his own imperialist reasons. Maybe, just maybe, one might want to be critical of Mr. Putin, rather than just Joe Biden.
Gerald Malloy: It wouldn’t have happened.
Bernie Sanders: Oh, really.
Gerald Malloy: President Trump, this wouldn’t happen. President Trump will deliver peace. I served in the Fulda Gap during the Cold War. I know all about Putin and Russia. I know what he’s trying to do. Wouldn’t have happened under a different administration. It’s been a horrible war, and you know that kind of the way we pulled out of Afghanistan. We didn’t see that that would trigger him to attack Ukraine….
Mikaela Lefrak: I’m going to stop us here, because I really want to move on to our next topic, which is another important one we’ve heard about from our listeners.
Immigration
Shaun Robinson: We’ll move on now to immigration. Gerald Malloy, you’ve cited border security as one of the most important issues facing the next Senate. President Trump, whose campaign you’ve endorsed, has vowed to conduct mass deportations of noncitizens, end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented people, reimpose a travel ban on those from Muslim majority countries, and even impose the death penalty on “any migrant” who kills a U.S. citizen. Do you agree with these positions?
Gerald Malloy: So like I said earlier, I’ve traveled the entire state. We have a fentanyl crisis. We have wide open borders. It’s actually become unsafe. It might be the most unsafe time of my whole life here in the United States. Check out that Swanton Sector border report. Folks are coming across, crime and drugs are pouring into Vermont, northern and southern borders. It’s actually time to take action against Mexico and China and start supporting our law enforcement community related to fentanyl. If we need immigration laws to change, then we should change them. But to answer your question, no, I am actually not in favor of trying to deport every single illegal immigrant that entered this country – that whatever that number is, 10, 20 million, I’m not in favor of that. So there were some areas where I differ from President Trump on this, but what I don’t differ on with is actually trying to secure the border. That hasn’t happened in 34 years in my opponent’s time in Congress. It’s a disgrace. People are dying. Go to Jenna’s Promise up in Johnson. Walk in there. Take a look at your right. It’s a tragedy. Vermont is dying from overdoses because we have open, unsecure borders.
Shaun Robinson: Thank you. Thank you. Sen. Sanders, the Senate has taken up but failed to pass a bipartisan border deal that would have toughened asylum rules, allowed for emergency closures of the U.S. Mexico border, and beefed up U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Emily asks, “There were just six Democratic or independent senators that voted against the bill. You were one of them. Can you explain why?”
Bernie Sanders: Yeah, the bill did not go anywhere near as far, as far as it has to go in the kind of comprehensive immigration reform that we need. It goes without saying that we need to strengthen our borders, people should not be coming across the border illegally, and I support absolutely increasing the amount of manpower and the kind of technology that we need to stop people coming across our borders illegally. On the other hand, we have people in this country who have been in this country for decades, who have worked hard, kids who have come over at the age of one or two serving in the military. They are teachers now. They are professionals. They are serving their communities. The idea that they would be deported is clearly unacceptable to me, and many of them need a path towards citizenship, so that is why I voted against that bill.
Shaun Robinson: Thank you.
Lightning round
Mikaela Lefrak: We have time now for a brief lightning round before the end of the debate. I will ask you to please keep your answers as short as possible, 10 seconds or less here. Shaun, go ahead.
Shaun Robinson: Should the federal government Institute term limits on members of Congress? Senator Sanders?
Bernie Sanders: We have term limits. It’s called an election. People want to vote me out. I’m out. It’s true for anybody.
Shaun Robinson: Gerald Malloy.
Gerald Malloy: He’s right. I will look at term limits, though, consider it.
Mikaela Lefrak: Should the Supreme Court be expanded from its current nine-seat bench? Gerald Malloy.
Gerald Malloy: Absolutely not, disrupt the fabric of our U.S. Constitution. No need to do that.
Bernie Sanders: I’m not in favor of expanding the Supreme Court, but the Constitution provides life tenure for a federal judge, not necessarily on the Supreme Court, so I think we can look at rotating judges and create a fairer situation.
Shaun Robinson: Should Congress ban assault rifles? Gerald Malloy.
Gerald Malloy: No, I support the Second Amendment.
Bernie Sanders: I support the Second Amendment. Yes, Congress should have banned assault weapons, because these are weapons designed not for hunting, but to kill human beings in a military fashion, large numbers of people in a short period of time. I support the banning of them.
Mikaela Lefrak: Last question here, what should the federal minimum wage be? Sen. Sanders.
Bernie Sanders: Well, as the guy who has introduced the legislation on that, I think it should be at least $17 an hour.
Gerald Malloy: I am not in favor of modifying the federal minimum wage. Folks need to get outside and take a look. Any McDonald’s is hiring people $15 to $20 an hour right now.
Mikaela Lefrak: Thank you.
Closing statements
Shaun Robinson: Time now for a closing statement from each candidate. The order was determined randomly before the show, and Sen. Sanders, you’ll start us off.
Bernie Sanders: This country faces probably more severe problems than we have faced in a very long time. We’re fighting to maintain our democracy against the political leadership in the Republican Party, which really does not believe in democracy. We’re trying to transform our energy system and take on climate change so that our kids, future generations, can have a lifestyle worth living. We’re taking on incredible wealth and power in the United States, where we now have more income inequality than we’ve ever had in the history of this country. I am proud of the record that I have established as leader in the progressive movement in saying to the billionaire class that they have got to stop their greed, saying to large corporations that you can’t keep ripping off the American people, raising prices while you charge us outrageous prices at the grocery store and in housing. So I’m proud of the record that I have established, and very grateful for the people of Vermont for sending me to Congress as the longest-serving independent in the history of this country. And I, once again, would appreciate their support.
Shaun Robinson: Thank you. Gerald Malloy, your closing statement.
Gerald Malloy: Vermont has become unaffordable, unsafe and a place to leave. This election is about change and delivering results. For change — for no change, reelect an 83-year-old progressive left career politician for another six year term, 34 years in Congress. He’s delivered false promises, soaring health care, two new wars, 40 year high inflation, open borders, fentanyl crisis, fentanyl crisis, crime crisis and a $36 trillion debt. For change, elect a West Point graduate, veteran, businessman, MBA with 40 years of very relative work and leadership experience delivering results in business, government, military and foreign policy, service in Europe, Asia, Persian Gulf and the Middle East, I will deliver results for your safety, for our economy and for peace on earth. My name is Gerald Malloy. I love our brave little state. It is time for change. I respectfully ask for your vote. May the 14th star shine bright. May God bless America. Thank you.
Shaun Robinson: Thank you both. This concludes Vermont Public and VTDigger’s general election debate for U.S. Senate. Many thanks to the two candidates for being here, part of our program today. That’s independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Republican Gerald Malloy.
Mikaela Lefrak: Front Porch Forum is Vermont Public’s lead outreach partner for the Citizens Agenda project. This debate was produced by Holt Albee, Jon Ehrens and Paul Heintz, with production support from Natalie Williams, Taylor Haynes, Daniela Fierro, Andrea Laurion, David Rice, Brian Stevenson, Kaylee Mumford, Joey Palumbo, Riley Cartwright and Frank Alwine. Our time keeper is Rick Barrett. Audio engineering today was by Peter Engisch. Radio direction was by Mary Engisch, and video direction by Mike Dunn. We got all the Vermonters on our staff here. I’m Mikaela Lefrak with Shaun Robinson from VTDigger. Thank you so much for listening and watching. We will catch up again soon.
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