Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees: Interview With Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Interview
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Well, I think we're all concerned about what happened at Silicon Valley and we are looking at other banks around the country. And I think, our hope and our prayer is that there is not going to be contagion.
And I think it's imperative that the Congress act and act soon in a number of areas. And I think the first point that has to be made, you know, Anderson, I went through the 2009 financial crisis and I would say that I have not experienced in my political life, a moment in which the American people were more outraged at what was happening in the country than at that time.
What they saw is huge financial institutions run by the Masters of the Universe, these billionaire type guys, engaging in fraud, destroying the banking system, getting bailed out, creating an economic situation when millions of people lost their homes, their life savings, their jobs, and nothing happened to these crooks.
And the American people looked at Washington, and they said, you know, this is wrong. We can't have two systems of justice for everybody, except for the people on top.
So bottom line here is I agree with President Biden is that whatever happens in the future, to the degree that there are any bailouts, it must not be, it cannot be that working families and the middle class bailout the Masters of the Universe. They're going to have to figure out a way on Wall Street and within our financial system that they paid for the bailout, not ordinary people.
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Well, again, it's hard to say and, you know, they're looking at the facts. But I would say it is a little bit troubling, that literally a day before this bank collapsed, they were busy giving out bonuses, and that some of the leadership in that bank sold a lot of shares in the recent past. So that's something for the FBI and the Justice Department to take a look at.
The other point that I would make is, back in 2018, the banking industry wanted a major reform in the Dodd-Frank bill, which came about after the 2008 crash. And what they wanted was to remove many, many banks, who were being under strong supervision, because the level at that point was $50 billion. Any bank over $50 billion would be under stress tests and strong supervision to make sure that we didn't have another crisis, and what the banking folks came in, and they said, no, no, no, that's too onerous. It's costing us too much money to have to go through all of these regulatory processes.
Let's raise that level to $250 billion, meaning only the very, very largest banks. And the irony of this whole thing is that Silicon Valley Bank, the leader that, Mr. Becker came here to Washington to lobby to remove himself, his bank, from this kind of supervision.
So, you have the absurdity of them wanting to get out of supervision and then a number of years later, they come up before Congress asking to get bailed out.
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Really, really, really, really? No. I think the real, real situation is that again, we need to investigate to understand fully what happened. Look, that's what the banking industry does. They want to make as much money as they possibly can and they're willing to take risks to do that. And the sad part and the dangerous part is if they think they can take those risks, and if they collapse, the taxpayers of this country are going to bail them out. That is a bad situation.
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Well, we're going to do a hearing on it and I think we may get some. Here's the story. You know, you may remember, Anderson, that when I was running for President in the 2020 campaign, I'd made a trip from Detroit, Michigan with a busload of folks in the Midwest to Windsor, Ontario, in order to buy insulin. These were diabetics.
And it was unbelievable. In Windsor, Ontario, they paid one-tenth of the price that they were paying in the United States for the same exact product. And I think over the years, more and more of us, the American people, some of us in Congress have been saying to the pharmaceutical industry in general, and to the manufacturers of insulin, stop ripping off the American people.
One out of five people, diabetics in this country who use insulin are rationing insulin, because they can't afford the price. Now, the very good news is that within the last couple of weeks, Eli Lilly has announced a 70 percent reduction in their price. Novo Nordisk, another major manufacturer also announced a major reduction in their prices. And the third company, Sanofi, I think -- I think will also announce some reduction.
This is a great victory to the American people. We're going to be hearing on this issue and what we're going to say to these guys, you tell us, you tell us how we are going to make sure that every person in this country who needs insulin is going to get it at a cost that they can afford. But it's not just insulin. We're going to start looking at these are companies that are manufacturing cancer drugs, which in some cases cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, all of these companies make huge profits.
So this is an issue we are going to stay on big time.
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Thank you very much.
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