Sanders on Minority Appeal: We Will Make ‘Significant Inroads’ Across the Country’

KARL: “OK, let me ask you, there’s no doubt a tremendous achievement, this grassroots gathering all over the country, but The New York Times did an analysis of who showed up, according to your own numbers on this. And they say, ‘More attendees from the Seattle metro area than all of the early states, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina combined,” that these came from the liberal base of your party. So I’ve got to ask you, you are not going to get elected president if you can’t broaden your appeal beyond the far left of the Democratic Party. How do you do that?”

SANDERS: “Well, that’s a fair question, Jonathan. And let me just say this, if you and I were having this discussion three months ago, you would not have anticipated that we would have brought 100,000 people out on Wednesday night that we would have the largest crowds of any candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire and all over this country. We have made phenomenal progress in the last three months. And you know what, we’re going to continue to make that kind of progress. We are going to be reaching out effectively, I believe, for the African American community, because I have not only one of the strongest civil rights voting records in the United States congress, we have an agenda that calls for creating jobs, for raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, to making public colleges and universities tuition free. That is going to appeal in a significant way, I believe, to the Africa-American community, to the Hispanic community. So, let’s talk three months from now. I think you will see that our campaign makes significant inroads all across the country.”