Bernie Sanders to Seth Meyers: Yes, It's ‘Awkward’ to Run Against Senate Colleagues

In a big new interview with The New York Times on the occasion of his show’s fifth anniversary, Seth Meyers admitted that he doesn’t love interviewing politicians. In his experience, “they’re just gonna answer the question they wish you’d asked and they’re going to say it the way they practiced it, and oftentimes it’s something they’ve said a bunch. So there’s the lack of the crackle you want during an interview.”

But not every politician is Bernie Sanders.

The Vermont senator made his seventh appearance on Late Night in less than four years on Thursday. He began by systematically laying out his platform for 2020 but loosened up a bit when Meyers asked him how he feels about his policies moving into the mainstream.

“A lot of those issues obviously distinguished you from the competition last time,” Meyers said. “One of the successes is you now have convinced a lot of the people that are running against you. Do you ever want to say—because a lot of them are friends or colleagues—do you ever want to say, ‘Hey, Medicare for All, that’s kind of my thing?’”  

Laughing, Sanders replied, “No one person can do it alone. So, we need a lot of voices out there.”

With so many of his Senate colleagues currently running for the Democratic nomination, Meyers asked his guest, “Is it awkward that you all know that you're all trying to be president?”

Most candidates would probably say “of course not,” but Sanders hesitated. “You know, look...” he said, as the audience chuckled and Meyers jumped in with, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“The short answer is yes,” Sanders said eventually. “We all have lunch together every Tuesday, and you’ve got half the caucus running for president, you know? So it is kind of strange.”

“But on the other hand, you know, we have known each other—I've known Elizabeth Warren for like 20 years, I've known many of the other senators for a long time, and we're friends,” Sanders added. “Obviously each and every one of us wants to win the nomination. I certainly do. But I think we all understand that no matter who wins, everybody is going to rally around that candidate and defeat Donald Trump. That is most important.”