senator Bernie Sanders is an independent of Vermont he endorsed Zoran Mamani for mayor in a new op-ed for the Guardian he asked quote "Will the Democrats learn from Zoran Mandani's victory?" And he joins me now senator what's your reaction to the big big upset last night enthusiastic it was one of the great political vis victories in modern history uh Zeron ran a brilliant campaign and I think the most significant part of his campaign and I Chris would not compare it to Obama or to Clinton uh what Zeron understood is that in order to win you got to be more than charismatic and he is you got to be more than smart which he is you got to build a strong grassroots movement around a progressive agenda he had thousands and thousands of people knocking on doors because they were excited about his message and his message said "You know what in a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality yeah we are going to ask the richest people in New York City to stop paying their fair share of taxes so among other things we can we can address the major crisis facing New York and America by the way is soaring housing costs they're going to freeze rent at a time when families can't afford decent quality food he's talking about helping to create publicly funded grocery stores so that people kids can get food that's affordable making buses free he's giving people a positive agenda not just going after Trump but giving something the people can believe in an analysis which reflects their reality so I thought it was a great campaign uh and uh I look forward to continue to work with him you know one thing I think is that I I'm curious what you think of this theory i think one thing that happens in campaigns is people get risk averse the more sort of backing they have like the and and so they don't want to screw it up and the more that you're you're coming from a position of like no one expects you to win it does also give you latitude to actually go out and try stuff like even whether that's a new ideas like we're going to try publicly funded grocery stores like no one else is saying that but you you I do think there's an appetite for risk or trying new things that was so palpable in this campaign that seems to me also really important but it's not just you know he sat up a night I think you know oh this is you know a risky idea but we'll do it no right it's I think he is prepared and this is the point look what is the Democratic party today Chris it is I I don't think people can argue with us it is funded by very wealthy people it is run by inside the way inside the beltweight consultants who really have very little clue about what's going on in the real world and that is why I think sadly Kla Harris lost an election uh that she should have won it is a party which is not going to take on powerful special interests uh because of fundraising uh fears uh and it certainly has turned its back on working people and Zeron did all of that he he changed all of that about and the question is and you know will the Democratic leadership learn from his campaign i doubt it i think they would rather go down with the Titanic than give up the the fact that they are captains of the boat but it doesn't really matter what they think what Zan's campaign showed is that people are prepared to stand up and fight for change we're seeing that in the fighting oligarchy tour we saw it last week millions of people came out to the no king rally people understand that our political and economic system is broken that the rich get richer and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table they understand the two parties today are not responding to their needs they want something different and I think Zeron touched on that reality i think some people may know this part of your bio but some may not which is that uh you were a congressman for Vermont the atlarge there's one district you are obviously US senator before that you were the you were a mayor in Burlington and I'm curious you were a socialist mayor there's not a ton of them we don't have a really long list of socialist mayors in America so from one former socialist mayor to a man who may be a socialist mayor you know one of the things I think about that job whatever size municipality you're governing is you really got to deliver for people like it's not you're not taking votes right so people are going to see very tangibly like is this working or not and I'm curious how you think about what advice you would offer from that perspective which is very different than being a senator or legislator well I just spoke to Zan a little while ago and I I had some thoughts about it's going to be a very hard job i mean running any big city in America today with all of the crises that municipalities are facing uh is just not easy uh and he's going to have to think long and hard about how you can run that city in a way that really works well for working people uh but what I did as mayor of Burlington and I was reelected three times taking on Democrats and Republicans uh is we focused on the basic issues i kept property taxes as low as I could i was conscious of the fact a lot of people can't afford higher taxes we paved the streets the sidewalks we paid attention to workingclass and low-income areas that have been ignored for years we started an afterchool program we started a child care program uh we started the teen center for kids which people still remember we build affordable housing started new ideas community land trust for housing which is now being done literally all over the world it was started in Burlington so your point is we also spoke out on national issues and we had a foreign policy people joke Burlington have a foreign policy we could do it but you can't do that unless you are paying attention to the day-to-day needs of workingclass people so I remember one guy wrote somebody said your mayor is a socialist what do you think about that guy says I I really don't know but he is getting the streets paved yes that's exact it all starts It all starts from there at every at every level of politics senator Bernie Sanders serious