drug money, nobody is bringing up these issues. it should be represented to the american people that the government was complicit in all these actions. host: ron, thanks for the call. jonathan says, "sanders is the kind of political figure we lack in our government. the money will come from the banks." you can share your thoughts and follow us on twitter @cspan. jason is next from vancouver, washington. guest: i was going to sing bernie's praises, but i would rather respond to these republicans. first of all, bernie's socialism is relative. if you say european canada =-- bernie in europe or canada, he is fairly mild. he is not chairman mao. some of these previous callers

may not know him that much. he calls for a wall street tax to pay for education. switching to a single-payer health care system is cheaper, we have empirical evidence and 50 other industrialized nations that tell us that. it's about half as cheap as the one we have now. the bulk of the money comes from raising the tax rate. course, he is not come out with a firm number. but based on what he has said, somewhere in the canada neighborhood, in the 60's or something. it is all relevant in the industrialized world. look at our tax rate compared to everyone else. host: jason, he was in washington state last week, did you see him when he campaigned last weekend? guest: i was visiting some friends, so i did make it. but you see bernie in the

mid-1950's, called a socially liberal eisenhower republican. his views are not extreme. it's just extreme in 2015 after 35 years of trickle-down economics. host: can he win the nomination? guest: i think he can. i don't see how an honest man is churningdefeated after out platitudes for decades. bernie won't say this, but if you switch hillary's position on a couple of issues, she could comfortably run on the republican ticket. economically she is not better. as the campaign season goes on and people realize that, when she talks about economics, she doesn't sound so much different from jeb bush. they will begin to separate. i can only hope, because he is a good man. host: a tweet from another viewer. you can follow us on @cpsnspan.

columbia, south carolina is senator bernie sanders. senator, thank you very much for being with us tonight on c-span. sen. sanders: my pleasure. host: you mentioned a few months ago when we sat down to talk to you that you were building a movement. three-and-a-half months into your campaign, are you aware that you thought you would be? sen. sanders: no, we are far ahead of where i thought we would be. the turnouts that we have seen all of this country, including a conservative state like south carolina -- what we are seeing today is far beyond what i thought possible in the 3 1/2 months we have been in the campaign. it is not only that. last month, we did a digital organizing effort. we had 3700 locations in 50 states in america bringing out over 100,000 people. up to this point, we have received individual

contributions from some 400,000 americans, averaging $31.20. in terms of the support that we are seeing in so many ways, we are far beyond where i thought we would be after 3 1/2 months. host: your speech lighting up the twitter universe. i asked your viewers -- ask our viewers, keep your comments brief. we begin with irene on the line for democrats in san antonio, texas. guest: hi, thank you so much. c-span, thank you so much for airing bernie's rally. i felt like i had a front-row seat, which was amazing. i am in san antonio, texas. i don't know if he's going to make it down here. i have been following him for years. i am a huge supporter. i can't even tell you how ecstatic i was when he said he was running. e alreadye at "-- h

had me at "i'm running." if you build it, they will come. i'm not having a lot of good feelings yet, but it's going to happen. it's momentum. host: we will get a response. thank you irene. sen. sanders: i think there is a lot of momentum. the reason for that is that we are talking about issues that are, in fact, on the hearts and minds of the american people. which most people in politics do not talk about. nobody thinks it is right at the 1% in thisof the country is as much as the bottom 90%. people don't think that is what america or our economy is supposed to be about. when you raise issues like that and come up with concrete ideas, people all over this country. in texas and elsewhere, are

shaking their heads and saying, yeah, we need to build beyond establishment politics and establishment economics. host: another famous saying, "bernie sanders, a really smart guy. i wish we could get more of this more often." are you sensing that on the campaign trail? sen. sanders: i absolutely am. you an i chatted a couple months ago. never in my wildest imagination what i believe that we would have thousands of people coming out to rallies in greenville, south carolina or here in columbia, south carolina. nobody would have told me that we would have 28,000 people coming up to portland, oregon. were 27,000 in los angeles. not just the size of the crowds, it's enthusiasm. it makes me a bit nervous. as i said tonight, this is not about me. i cannot do it alone. what we need is a political

movement of millions of people who are getting involved in the political process in a way that we have not done in the past. if we continue to have low voter turnout, if people are not paying attention to the major issues facing us, right wing republicans will continue to win. if we can bring people together around a progressive agenda, i think we can transform this country and win this election. host: dee is next from rockford, illinois on the republican line. guest: under the obama administration, ina cancer patient -- i am a cancer patient receiving care. becau were to be elected, se honestly i have been a republican all my life, and i am frustrated.

i am frustrated with the choices that we have right now as far as health care is concerned. took me over a month just to get what might he moved treatments. chemot to get one of my treatments because of the insurance i am on through the obama administration. what would you plan to do differently if you were elected? sen. sanders: what we should understand, and i fear that not every american does understand this -- we are the only major wealthy industrialized country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all of our people as a right. the system that we have is way, way way out of touch with the rest of the world. i will fight for medicare for all. we can improve it and we should expanded to all people. -- expand it to all people. when you do that, not only do

you provide quality health care to all people, you get rid of the profiteering of the insurance companies and drug companies. drug companies are charging us, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. and we can provide quality care for all of our people that is significantly less per capita then we are currently spending. that is my goal in terms of health care. host: deborah is joining us from minneapolis on the independent line. good evening. guest: i don't know what i am, independent or democrat. it's also very confusing. but the one thing that i do know , and i never know how to say it quite right, but on a religious principle, god himself appointed us to all give 10% of what he gave to us. $70 only have 700 month, has to go where it has to go. if everybody paid the same

percent as we do, we would have nothing to complain about. the money that we do gather, when 10% of our income is used towards the one thing that is needed, which is all the things you talked about, there ought to be enough money. that is all i have to say. sen. sanders: deborah, let me approach the issue from a slightly different perspective. number one, we are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. not only the world, but the history of the world. the problem is most people don't feel that because almost all of the wealth and much of the income is going to the top 1%. what we have seen in the last 30 years in this country is a massive transfer of wealth, which has gone from the middle class and working families, whose percentage of wealth has 1%unk, to the top 1/10th of

whose percentage has a most doubled. -- has almost doubled. if we address that issue, sending that welcome back to the middle class, we can do enormous thing. we have to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. we have to make public housing for universities free. we need health care for all of her people. childcare is a disaster. there is a lot of work to be done. we can do it. we are not a poor country. the problem is that so few have so much, and so money have so little. that is what has got to change. host: senator, let me follow this up from jesse, who tweeted, "i tried to refinance my private school loans, but no luck. how would you convince the banks to help people like me?" sen. sanders: