SANDERS: You can call what I'm doing today whatever you want. That would start to change over the course of the next eight hours.
He had a long and consistent track record, but he hadn't emerged as a national figure. A few hours after Obama's interview aired, Bernie Sanders walked onto the Senate floor.īERNIE SANDERS: I think we can do better, and I am here today to take a strong stand against this bill.ĭETROW: At this point, Sanders had been in Congress for nearly two decades. Democrats got an extension of unemployment benefits and a range of other broader tax cuts. Republicans got the tax cuts, the Bush extensions, plus a cut in estate taxes paid by the mega-wealthy. They reached one relatively quickly in several phone calls over the course of a single weekend. OBAMA: The problem is that this is the single issue that the Republicans are willing to scotch the entire deal for.ĭETROW: Obama had tapped Vice President Joe Biden to figure out a deal with Mitch McConnell. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The issue here is not whether I think that the tax cuts for the wealthy are a good or smart thing to do.ĭETROW: That morning, Obama was on NPR's Morning Edition defending the deal. Democrats had just lost the House of Representatives, and here was Obama about a month later asking his party for a major tax deal that would extend the Bush administration's tax cuts for the wealthy, something Democrats had railed on for years. SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: On December 10, 2010, President Barack Obama was facing a lot of pressure. NPR's Scott Detrow has more on this turning point in Sanders' political career. He was protesting a bipartisan agreement brokered by Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Mitch McConnell, who was the minority leader then. In 2010, Sanders went to the Senate floor. It was also central to a moment that helped make Senator Bernie Sanders a national figure.īernie Sanders fans know it simply as the speech. Do you compromise to get things done, or do you stick to your principles and fight? That dilemma has played out prominently in the Democratic race for president.
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