Bernie Sanders Swings Through Santa Barbara County

An appearance by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders drew thousands of people to Santa Barbara City College on Saturday.

Many of his supporters waited for hours to hear him speak.

In a one-on-one conversation with NewsChannel 3 before the rally, Sanders talked about his promise to make tuition free for all college students.

“It’s absolutely possible. Look its being done in Germany right now. It’s being done in Scandinavia right now. It will be done all over the world. We live in a competitive global economy,” said the senator. “We need to have the best educated work force in the world. To tell people they can’t go to college because their families lack the funds is really counterproductive. It’s dumb for the country and for the individual.”

“To create a situation where kids are leaving school $70,000 in debt and they are going to have to deal with that debt for decades is pretty crazy,” Sanders said. “We bailed out Wall Street as you know 8 years ago. Right now Wall Street is doing just fine. I believe we should have a tax on wall street speculation which will pay, more than pay, to reduce student debt and to make public college universities tuition free and that’s exactly what we should be doing.”

Sanders also addressed his plans to combat climate change, and his chances of winning the California primary on June 7.

“California is the largest state in our country. It has 475 pledged delegates. If we can win California and win it big, it gives us a great deal of momentum going into the Democratic Convention. Hopefully we will come out of that convention with the nomination.”

Sanders said he is energized to keep pushing to the very end.

“It is extraordinarily beautiful to see thousands of people come out at rallies who want to see America become the kind of country we know it can become, who want to tackle climate change, who want to tackle wealth inequality. We want to make sure that all of our people have health care as a right. It is a great feeling. It inspires me and it allows me to keep going,” Sanders said.

Sanders also made a stop at Santa Maria High School on Saturday afternoon.