Interview with Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC

MITCHELL: Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders joins me now. Senator, it's great to see you again. Thank you for being with us.

SANDERS: My pleasure.

MITCHELL: Let's talk about the tech area and what Clinton was proposing yesterday, because you also tweeted right before her speech that we can't return, in terms of security. You said I believe strongly we can protect our security -- excuse me, protect our people without undermining our constitutional rights. I worry we're moving to an Orwellian society.

SANDERS: Well, that's right. Look, everybody knows that ISIS and al Qaeda and international terrorism are huge threats to this country. And I believe we've got to crush ISIS. I think we have to do it through an international coalition with Muslim troops on the ground supported by the United States, Western Europe, and Russia. And I think domestically we have got to do everything that we can technologically to make sure that we do not allow sleeper cells to develop, or we allow communication that takes place within ISIS groups.

But on the other hand, this is what I do believe. We cannot as a nation going around saying we are a free society and yet undermine the Constitution of the United States of America.

So if the question, Andrea, is do I believe we can crush ISIS, that we can destroy international terrorism, but that we can do it in a way that preserves our constitutional rights? I do. So no one is arguing that we should not be vigorous, but some of us believe that we do have a constitution and that freedom in this country is extremely important.

MITCHELL: Do you believe that Silicon Valley should do more, should cooperate more with government, to try to take down some of these ISIS communications?

SANDERS: I do, absolutely. And these guys understand the issue and have more influence and more understanding of what is going on than any other sector in the world. And they have got to play a vigorous role.

But to destroy ISIS, we have got to do a number of things. And as I have said many times, Andrea, in terms of our foreign policy, I think that the war, the invasion of Iraq, was a horrendous mistake. I don't want to see that repeated; I don't want to see the United States alone going into the region. We need a strong coalition. King Abdullah is right when he talks about this being a struggle for the soul of Islam. Muslim boots on the ground supported by the United States. Here in this country, working with the high-tech companies to do everything that we can to shut off the communication capabilities of ISIS and sleeper groups.

MITCHELL: I don't know if you had time to watch the debate last night or read or see any of the playback from the debate last night. I wanted to ask you about the Republicans as well.

SANDERS: Sure. Yes.

MITCHELL: Here's a bit of Ted Cruz trying to explain his carpet-bombing comments from earlier.

[begin video clip]

TED CRUZ: What it means is using overwhelming air power to utterly and completely destroy ISIS. You would carpet-bomb where ISIS is, not a city, but the location of the troops. The object isn't to level a city; the object is to kill the ISIS terrorists.

[end video clip]

MITCHELL: Of course, the point is that ISIS is in cities like Mosul and Ramadi and Raqqa. So I'm not sure how you'd get around that. But what is your approach to the air war against ISIS?

SANDERS: I believe we -- I agree with President Obama; we are engaging in air strikes right now. I think, as I mentioned a moment ago, here is my nightmare when I listen to a number of Republicans. And that is they have not learned the lesson from the war in Iraq. And they have not understood that the United States getting involved in perpetual never-ending warfare in that quagmire which is Syria and Iraq would be a disaster for our armed forces and a disaster for the taxpayers of this country.

The most important thing we can do is, yes, we need U.S. air power. You know what? We need to coordinate with the Russians and U.K. and France. That needs to be a coordinated effort. But what is most important to me, if we are serious about destroying ISIS and winning this thing in a way that does not get us in perpetual warfare, is there must be a coalition also involving the Islam nations. King Abdullah of Jordan is absolutely right. This is a struggle for the soul of Islam and the Muslim nations themselves have got to be on the ground in a coordinated way destroying ISIS.

MITCHELL: Well, there are two points there, because the Arab leaders, the Sunni Arab leaders have talked a big game, but as Ash Carter has been making it clear in his travels just now, and John Kerry, they are not delivering. They haven't even been flying missions, the Jordanians, the Bahranis, the Saudis. Plus do you really want to have the U.S. coordinating with Russia when Russia, according to Ash Carter just yesterday, is not targeting ISIS but targeting the anti-Assad rebels?

SANDERS: The answer is, in my view, yes. Obviously we have huge differences with Russia. Obviously, we remain concerned about Assad. But the major focus right now in my view is to bring as many countries as possible, including the Muslim countries, including Russia -- let's not forget, Andrea, they lost hundreds of people on an airliner blown up by ISIS terror. I think we have got to bring together that coalition, understanding that there are geopolitical differences between us. But at the end of the day, if we do not learn the lesson of Iraq, that we cannot do it alone, we cannot be the policemen of the world, I think that would be a real tragedy. We need the coalition, yes. We do need to work with Russia. In fact, we need to work with Iran. The major focus bringing countries together, Muslim countries, Western countries, Russia, must be to destroy ISIS. That must be the focus of our efforts.

MITCHELL: And I also wanted to ask you, because I know you're going with Keith Ellison, Congressman Ellison, to visit a mosque today, what is your message in doing that? And your reaction, of course, to Donald trump's ban on Muslims and some of the other anti-Muslim rhetoric coming from the other side?

SANDERS: My reaction is that, as a nation, we have struggled for hundreds of years with racism and with other forms of bigotry. We have made progress. Finally in 1960 we elected a Catholic as president. We've elected an African-American as president. I do not want to see the frustration and the despair that so many people feel being picked apart by people like Donald Trump, preyed upon, in order to divide us again.

A few months ago we were supposed to hate the Mexicans who according to Trump were all racists and criminals. And now we're supposed to hate the Muslims. That's not what this country is supposed to be about. We are strongest when we stand together. And remember, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Told us that we judge people based on their character, not the color of their skin, not their religion. So let's bring our people together to make sure that we have an economy that works for all people, that we are effective, effective in fighting international terrorism. Let's not let demagogues divide us up by our religion or the country that we come from.

MITCHELL: Bernie Sanders, and we saw you with Killer Mike, so you're obviously leaving no stone unturned in your effort to reach out to as broad a coalition as possible.

Senator Sanders, it's great to see you. Thank you very much for joining us today.

SANDERS: Thank you.