Shadowing Practice: Bernie Explains Whats Next After the Midterms - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hello everybody.

Let me begin by thanking the millions of Americans who were actively involved in the election yesterday.

The people who knocked on doors, the people who made phone calls, and all the things that a winning campaign requires.

Thank you for what you did.

And let me also congratulate the great candidates who won in US Senate races, in House races, and in state elections all across America.

On a personal note, I look forward to working with all of the newly elected senators,

and I thank them very much for their hard work in this campaign and for giving the Democrats a strong majority.

Yesterday, Trump told us to vote as if he were on the ballot.

Vote as if he were on the ballot.

That's what he said, and that is exactly what the American people did.

Together, we stood up to authoritarianism and a president who does not believe in the Constitution or the rule of law,

and we won.

With Democratic control over the Senate and the House, we will now finally be able to hold Donald Trump accountable.

That is a big deal.

But as important as it is, it is not enough.

We have got to do more.

Whether we like it or not,

we are living in an unprecedented moment in American history where our country faces extraordinary crises.

We cannot and must not run away from them when Democrats assume power in January.

These crises must be dealt with.

It is no secret that in the United States and all over the world.

People are giving up on democracy.

Now, why is that?

And the answer is that all over the world,

not just in America, working families are struggling to put food on the table and pay for basic necessities,

while the very richest people become much richer.

And throughout our country and many other countries, ordinary people are saying, does their government,

does their government even know that they exist

or are elected officials too busy worrying about the needs of the rich and the powerful.

This is an American issue, but in fact an international issue.

And in my view, the American people have had enough.

They are demanding real change and bold policies that will dramatically improve their lives.

In the richest country on earth, the American people want a government that stands for working families,

not billionaire campaign contributors.

And that is not just Bernie Sanders talking.

According to a recent AP poll, 80 % of registered voters want either,

quote, complete and total upheaval or substantial change in how this country is run,

and that includes 97 % of Democrats, 90 % of Independents, and 58 % of Republicans.

In other words, the American people understand that the economy today is rigged,

and that we cannot continue the same old, same old establishment politics and establishment policies.

The American people want change, real change.

And yesterday's election confirms just that.

Let me give you some examples of what I mean and the issues that we have got to deal with.

In our country today, income and wealth inequality has reached unprecedented levels.

The top 1 % now owns more wealth than the bottom 93 percent.

One man, Elon Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom 53 percent of American households.

In my view, that is insane, and I think that's how most Americans feel.

Democrats, when they gain control in January of the House and the Senate, cannot ignore this grotesque inequality.

We must take on the greed of the very, very rich and their incredible wealth.

And that means a Democratic Congress must pass a wealth tax on billionaires.

At a time when billionaires pay a lower effective tax rate than truck drivers or nurses,

we must enact a 5 % wealth tax on billionaires so that we can provide every working -class family in the country.

A family of four with a $12 ,000 direct payment.

In other words, if you're a working class family of four, that's $3 ,000 for every man, woman, and child.

$12 ,000.

Furthermore, with that tax on billionaires, we can build 7 million units of low -income and affordable housing.

We can make public colleges and universities tuition -free,

and we can provide universal free child care for 13 million children.

That is what a wealth tax on billionaires can do.

But taxing the oligarchs means more than just taking on their wealth.

It means ending their stranglehold over our political system.

Elon Musk and his billionaire friends have poured a record -breaking two billion dollars into the recent election.

That is absurd.

The American people want

Congress to overturn

Citizens United, abolish super PACs, and establish public funding of elections.

Democracy must mean one person, one vote, not billionaires buying elections.

But it's not just massive income and wealth inequality that we have to deal with or a corrupt campaign finance system.

In America today, as everybody knows, and I get the same response wherever I go in this country,

everybody understands that our health care system is broken, it is dysfunctional, and it is wildly expensive.

We spend twice as much per person on health care as any other major country.

Almost twice as much.

Yet, despite that huge expenditure, more than 90 million

Americans are uninsured or underinsured.

Over a half a million people go bankrupt each year because of medical debt.

We pay the highest prescription drug prices in the world and,

tragically, more than 60 ,000 Americans die unnecessarily every year because they cannot afford medical care.

How cruel is that?

Yes, we must repeal the trillion dollars in cuts

Trump made to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to prevent 15 million

Americans from losing their health care.

Yes, we must restore ACA tax credits to stop the outrageous premium spikes for 20 million

Americans, but that is nowhere near enough.

Health care must be considered as a human right, not a privilege.

That means passing

Medicare for All legislation now supported by 66 % of the American people.

As an immediate first step, Democrats must lower the Medicare eligibility age from 65 down to 55,

expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing, and guarantee universal health care coverage for every child from birth to age 19.

All of this can be accomplished with 51 votes in the Senate through the reconciliation process.

But it's not just income and wealth inequality that we have to deal with, or a corrupt campaign finance system, or a dysfunctional health care system.

We must deal with artificial intelligence, the most transformational technology in the history of humanity.

In America today, big tech oligarchs are spending trillions of dollars on artificial intelligence and robotics with virtually no regulation.

This revolutionary technology will transform the lives of every man, woman and child in our country and around the world.

Left unchecked, AI and robotics will destroy tens of millions of jobs, devastate our children's mental health,

eviscerate our privacy rights, drive up electricity rates, strain water supplies, and transform warfare.

If AI becomes smarter than human beings and escapes human control,

it will also pose an existential threat to the very existence of humanity.

We cannot allow a handful of big tech billionaires to become even richer

and more powerful by ramming this dangerous technology down our throats.

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Democrats must enact a national moratorium on AI data centers,

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must pause advanced AI development, and ban superintelligence.

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And, by the way, I might mention that yesterday

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In the election, in dozens of communities throughout our country, citizens voted for a moratorium on the construction of data centers.

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In other words, a moratorium on data centers is exactly what the American people want.

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But my friends, it is not just oligarchy, a corrupt campaign finance system, a broken healthcare system, and uncontrolled AI.

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In America today, while the very rich get richer,

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60 % of our people live paycheck to paycheck and millions work long,

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long hours for incredibly low wages.

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That must change.

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The $7 .25 an hour federal minimum wage is a starvation wage.

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Democrats must raise it to a living wage of at least $20 an hour

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and make it easier for workers to form unions by passing the PRO Act.

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A job must lift people out of poverty, not keep them in it.

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Further, in our country today, one -third of our seniors are struggling economically, and more than 20 % survive,

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are trying to survive, on less than $15 ,000 a year.

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Nearly half of older

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Americans have no retirement savings and no idea how they will retire with a shred of dignity.

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Meanwhile, Elon Musk pays the same amount into Social Security as someone earning $184 ,600 a year.

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That is absurd.

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By applying the Social Security payroll tax to all income above $250 ,000, including capital gains and dividends,

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we could increase benefits by $2 ,400 a year, lift millions of seniors out of poverty, improve cost -of -living adjustments,

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and keep Social Security solvent for generations without raising taxes on the bottom 91 percent of Americans.

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We must also restore the traditional pension plans corporate America took away

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so that every worker can count on a guaranteed income in retirement.

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That is what a Democratic Congress must do.

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Let me be clear.

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In America today, we spend more on the military than the next six nations combined.

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Despite massive waste, fraud, and abuse,

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the Pentagon has repeatedly failed independent audits and cannot account for trillions of dollars in spending.

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Adding insult to injury,

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Trump has dragged us into an illegal and unconstitutional war in Iran that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

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We must end this disastrous war, we must cut off all funding for the genocidal government in Israel,

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and we must substantially reduce military spending.

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Instead of pouring $1 .1 trillion into a bloated

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Pentagon and never -ending wars, a Democratic Congress must build the best public education system in

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the world with no teacher earning less than $60 ,000 a year.

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And let me touch on one more subject that

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Democrats must deal with.

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Since Trump took office, ICE agents have shot American citizens in cold blood, have broken down doors to arrest people,

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and have sent five -year -old children to detention centers.

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These actions are not only immoral and disgraceful, they are unconstitutional.

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Democrats must immediately rescind the $75 billion

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Republicans gave Trump to fund his domestic army.

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Instead of ICE agents terrorizing communities throughout the country,

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we must finally move to comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship for the undocumented.

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Let's be clear.

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All of the policies I have just discussed and more that I have not mentioned are not radical.

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They are precisely what a strong majority of the American people want.

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So we are in a moment in American history where a lot of folks are losing faith in democracy.

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They are struggling every day just to stay alive,

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while at the same time billionaires have more money than they can spend in a thousand lifetimes.

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are getting richer and richer all of the time.

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So what we are talking about now is not only the need to fight for economic justice,

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we are fighting to give hope to the American people, to allow them to understand that in fact their government can work for them,

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can address the crises that they face, and will pay attention to the needs of the men,

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women, and children in our country who are struggling and not just the very, very wealthy campaign contributors.

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That is, in my view, what Democrats have got to do when they assume power in January.

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We can do it, we must do it, and I look forward to working with all of you to make sure that it happens.

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Thank you all very much.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Bernie Explains Whats Next After the Midterms”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: billionaire, wealth, Democrats. This video has 158 sentences and 1936 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:50. The speaker talks at a steady 122 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
billionaire noun	/ˌbɪl.jəˈnɛɚ/	Somebody whose wealth is at least one billion (10⁹) currency units (usually understood to exclude holders of hyperinflated currencies).
wage noun	/weɪd͡ʒ/	An amount of money paid to a worker for a specified quantity of work, usually calculated on an hourly basis and expressed in an amount of money per hour.
inequality noun	/ˌɪn.ɪˈkwɑ.lɪ.ti/	A condition or state (of social, cultural, or legal matters) that is not equal; especially, such a condition that is thereby also unfair.
corrupt adjective	/kəˈɹʌpt/	Willing to act dishonestly for personal gain; accepting bribes.
universal adjective	/ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/	Of or pertaining to the universe.
earn verb	/ɝn/	To gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work.
poverty noun	/ˈpɑːvɚti/	The quality or state of being poor; lack of money
guarantee noun	/ˌɡæɹ.ənˈtiː/	Anything that assures a certain outcome.
establishment noun	/ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ.mənt/	The act or process of establishing; a ratifying or ordaining; settlement; confirmation.
humanity noun	/hjuˈmænɪti/	Humankind; human beings as a group.
artificial adjective	/ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/	Man-made; made by humans; of artifice.
affordable adjective	/əˈfɔɹ.də.bəl/	Able to be afforded; inexpensive or reasonably priced.
restore verb	/ɹɪˈstoɹ/	To reestablish, or bring back into existence.
pour verb	/poɹ/	To cause (liquid, or liquid-like substance) to flow in a stream, either out of a container or into it.
ballot noun	/ˈbælət/	A small ball placed in a container to cast a vote; now, by extension, a piece of paper or card used for this purpose, or some other means used to signify a…

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
look forward to verb		To anticipate, expect, or wait for, especially with a feeling of approval or pleasure; to be excited or eager to.
break down verb		To stop functioning.
cut off verb	/ˌkʌt ˈɔf/ [ˌkɐɾ ˈɔf]	To remove by cutting.
drive up verb		To cause or force a price, quantity, rate, etc. to increase.
run away from verb		To avoid or shirk a problem or consequences; to rush to back away from or disclaim responsibility for something.
stand up to verb		To object to or interfere with the actions of (someone seen as bullying, pushy, or controlling).
take away verb	/ˌteɪk əˈweɪ/	To remove something and put it in a different place.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were actively involved · must be dealt · are elected
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have had · has reached · have poured

Pronunciation to watch

The “th” sounds: throat /ˈθɹoʊt/, furthermore /ˈfɜː(ɹ).ðə(ɹ)ˌmɔː(ɹ)/, wealthy /ˈwɛl.θi/, authoritarianism /ɔˌθɔːɹɪˈtɛːɹiən.ɪzm̩/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: establishment /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ.mənt/, artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, immigration /ˌɪmɪˈɡɹeɪʃən/, establish /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/, regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: inequality /ˌɪn.ɪˈkwɑ.lɪ.ti/, universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, establishment /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ.mənt/, humanity /hjuˈmænɪti/, artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like billionaire, wage, inequality.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Bernie Explains Whats Next After the Midterms - Learn English Speaking with Video

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