Bernie Sanders: Obama has been a disappointment, but he can still save his presidency

On Wednesday night's edition of "The Ed Show," host Ed Schultz welcomed Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) for a discussion about the Republicans' ideological inconsistency on whether or not U.S. intervention is warranted in Syria.

Schultz began Wednesday's program by discussing the priorities of Republicans in Congress. He asked, "Will the Republicans in Congress ever listen to their constituents when it really matters?"

Sen. Bernie Sanders joined the broadcast and Schultz asked him, "Senator, are Republicans not voting for a strike to make President Obama look bad?"

"Well," Sanders replied, "I think that's certainly the motive of many of them. On the other hand, Ed, they are getting calls from their districts, which are saying that people are tired of war. They were lied to about Iraq. They were lied to about Afghanistan."

He went on to say that after more than a decade of ongoing military actions, Americans are wary of pouring more blood and treasure into a conflict that ultimately we have no stake in. The people of the U.S., he said, want Congress and the president to "start ending the collapse of the middle class, record-high poverty levels, growing income and wealth inequality in America," and "create millions of decent paying jobs and to put our people back to work."

If Pres. Barack Obama doesn't want to spend the rest of his term as a lame duck, Sanders said, he is going to have to address the obstructionism of the Republicans in Congress.

"A lot of people are disappointed in the president in terms of this war effort, in terms of the NSA business," he warned. "This president has got to say, and be honest about it, and say, look, our country today faces enormous crises. We are moving in the wrong direction. We used to be number one in terms of college graduates. Today we are number 16. And the reason that we are not moving forward is that we have right-wing extremists who are now controlling the House of Representatives, and this country is never going to go forward unless we end said right-wing rule in the House."

The president, Sanders insisted, has "got to draw the line in the sand. Not on Syria, but on the class warfare that is going on in America. If he does that, he will wake up people who have given up in the political process."

Watch the video, embedded below via MSNBC:

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