Parkland students interview Bernie Sanders: 'Your generation has the power to change America'

Fri 23 Mar 2018 01.00 EDT

By Rebecca Schneid and Dara Rosen in Washington

Two student journalists from the Eagle Eye, Stoneman Douglas high school’s newspaper, interviewed the Vermont senator about the search for a breakthrough in the gun debate – and his own voting record

Excerpt:

Do you think that the NRA has the kind of hold on Congress the media portrays?

It has a very significant hold. I think that hold may be breaking a little bit.

I think what the NRA can do, like any other powerful interest, whether it’s Wall Street or the pharmaceutical industry, if you vote the wrong way, they will primary you – they’ll run a candidate against you in the primary and they will spend a lot of money against you. And they have a lot of power, they have a lot of members. They intimidate a whole lot of members here [in Congress].

You’re seeing that power in the sense that the American people want serious gun safety legislation. We’re not seeing that on the floor. Why is that? Are they doing what 80% of the American people want? No. They’re doing what the NRA wants.

And you’re seeing the president who one day, as is usually the case with him, on a Monday he says one thing and on a Wednesday he says something completely different. But that has to do with the power of the NRA.