NBCNEWS: Full transcript: Ninth Democratic debate in Las Vegas

Full transcript: Ninth Democratic debate in Las Vegas
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/full-transcript-ninth-democratic-debate-las-vegas-n1139546

SANDERS: (...) What we need to do to deal with this grotesque level of income and wealth inequality is make sure that those people who are working -- you know what, Mr. Bloomberg, it wasn't you who made all that money. Maybe your workers played some role in that, as well.

(APPLAUSE)

And it is important that those workers are able to share the benefits, also. When we have so many people who go to work every day and they feel not good about their jobs, they feel like cogs in a machine. I want workers to be able to sit on corporate boards, as well, so they can have some say over what happens to their lives.

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TODD: Senator Klobuchar, I actually want to get you to something about -- Senator Sanders tweeted last year, "Billionaires should not exist."

......

TODD: So, Senator Sanders, what did you mean that you don't think they should exist?

SANDERS: I'll tell you what I mean.

TODD: What did that mean?

SANDERS: We have a grotesque and immoral distribution of wealth and income. Mike Bloomberg owns more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans. That's wrong. That's immoral. That should not be the case when we got a half a million people sleeping out on the street, where we have kids who cannot afford to go to college, when we have 45 million people dealing with student debt.

We have enormous problems facing this country, and we cannot continue seeing a situation where, in the last three years, billionaires in this country saw an $850 billion increase in their wealth -- congratulations, Mr. Bloomberg -- but the average American last year saw less than a 1 percent increase in his or her income. That's wrong.

TODD: Mayor Bloomberg, should you exist?

(...)

TODD: Is it too much? Have you earned too much -- has it been an obscene amount of -- should you have earned that much money?

BLOOMBERG: Yes. I worked very hard for it. And I'm giving it away.