Bernie Sanders challenges GOP to end ‘demagoguery’ in debate with Lindsey Graham

Hourlong debate spans inflation, gas prices, Donald Trump’s legacy and gun reform

While a second hearing from a House committee investigating the events leading up to and surrounding the Capitol riots was underway, the Fox Corporation aired a live debate on its Fox Nation platform between Senators Lindsey Graham and Bernie Sanders, who sparred over healthcare, the economy, gun reform and Donald Trump’s legacy.

The debate – which aired after the right-wing media network faced widespread criticism for rejecting live coverage of the committee’s first bombshell hearing – largely covered well-worn territory for both men, with Vermont’s Independent senator warning against growing wealth inequality and the North Carolina Republican arguing that progressive tax policies would have disastrous economic fallout.

But the hour-long conversation moderated by Fox News host Bret Baier on 13 June did steer towards actual policy discussions while he tried to find “common ground” between them.

Mr Sanders criticised Republican attempts to distract Americans from widening disparities in healthcare and wages while relying on “demagoguery” to deflect from legitimate crises.

“What we don’t need right now is demagoguery,” he said during the subscription-only debate presented by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Orrin G Hatch Foundation and the Edward M Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. “[We need] thoughtful solutions to the major crises that we face.”

Republican efforts to blame Democrats and President Joe Biden’s administration for global crises rather than present bipartisan solutions is “not good enough” policy, Mr Sanders said, and one that only elevates a party that continues to endorse lies about the 2020 presidential election and put the US on the path to authoritarianism.

He urged the Biden administration to support taxes on oil companies’ windfall profits rather than benefit “wealthy shareholders” while “ripping off the American people”.

Mr Graham blamed the administration’s American Rescue Plan for inflation and the president’s “war” on fossil fuels for high gas prices, claiming that the White House has made it “impossible” to ramp-up fuel production.

“Inflation is not just Joe Biden’s issue,” Mr Sanders said. “You have to explain why it takes place around the world and that has to do with supply chain, the terrible war in Ukraine, and in my view, corporate greed.”

Mr Graham said the nation’s gradual transition to electric vehicles may be underway but should not have an impact on consumer gas prices and inadequate production, which he said poses a national security issue; Mr Sanders said if companies can afford stock buybacks, they can also invest in new production.

Mr Graham claimed his counterpart has waged a “socialist” agenda that is “not working”, saying that the “path to socialism is being paved as we speak” under the current administration, despite none of the measures proposed by Mr Sanders during the debate coming into play.

Mr Sanders criticised Mr Graham for “red-baiting,” pointing to polling that shows majority support for raising the federal minimum wage and expanding federal healthcare programmes like Medicare.

He said: “Do you think raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is socialistic? Do you think doing what every major country does – guaranteeing healthcare to all people – is socialistic? Do you think expanding Medicare to cover dental care is socialistic?”

Mr Sanders said he would likely support a bipartisan gun reform package – proposed by Mr Graham and a group of senators over the weekend – but he said “clearly it does not go far enough.”

He said the measure is a “start” and a “step forward” but should also include bans on AR-15-style rifles, which were used in recent massacres in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York, among many other mass killings.

Mr Graham said Mr Sanders’s support for the proposal could mean that the package “can get 70 votes” in a routinely deadlocked Senate, “and that’s no small thing.”

“In this moment in history, is the United States Congress representing the needs of the majority of our country or are they representing powerful special interests?” Mr Sanders said in his closing remarks, adding that the US is marred by a “corrupt political system dominated by wealthy political contributors.”

He urged Congress to pass campaign finance reform legislation and called on Republicans to tell Americans that “Trump did not win” – a claim central to House committee hearings about his role fuelling violence on 6 January, 2021.

“America in all its faults is better than authoritarianism,” he said.