In my view, the media spends too much time treating politics like a baseball game, a personality contest or a soap opera. We need to focus less on polls, fundraisers, gaffes and who's running for president in four years, and more on the very serious problems facing the American people -- problems which get relatively little discussion. I hope that's what our town meeting on CNN tonight will accomplish.

What can be done about a political system in which the very rich are able to spend unlimited sums of money to elect candidates who represent their interests? Is that really what democracy is about? Why, in the year 2017, do we still have state governments trying to suppress the vote and make it harder for poor people, young people and people of color to participate in the political process?

Why is the richest country in the history of the world the only major country not to provide health care to all as a right, despite spending much more per capita? Why are we one of the very few countries on earth not to provide paid family and medical leave? With the five major drug companies making over $50 billion in profits last year, why do we end up paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs?

Meanwhile, on climate change, the debate is over. The scientific community is virtually unanimous in telling us that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is already doing devastating harm to our country and the entire world. How do we transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy while protecting those workers who might lose their jobs as a result of the transition? This is no small issue. The future of the planet is at stake.

These are the issues that need to be talked about all over the country. I thank CNN for allowing us to have a serious discussion about serious issues.

“Your history of support for policies that would drain valuable taxpayer resources from our public schools and funnel those funds to unaccountable private and for-profit education operators may well disqualify you from such a central role in public education,” Warren wrote.

Warren also criticized what she said was DeVos’ “paper-thin record on higher education and student debt.”

“You have no record or stated position on these higher education issues,” Warren wrote. “In fact the very policies you have spent decades advocating for in elementary and secondary education — more free taxpayer money for private and for-profit education operators with virtually no strings attached — are the exact policies that have caused so many problems and harmed so many students in higher education.”

DeVos, a former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman, leads the American Federation for Children, which along with its state-affiliated PACs contributed to 121 races in 12 states in the general election to support pro-school choice candidates, according to its website.

Kelly Carter waited on a white couple Saturday during a breakfast shift at Anita’s New Mexico Style Café in Ashburn, but they left a racist note instead of gratuity, reported WJLA-TV.

“Great service don’t tip black people,” read the handwritten note.

Carter said the couple, who appeared to be in their 20s, didn’t behave differently than any other customer and gave no indication they were unhappy with her service, and she said the woman even complimented the food.

“He didn’t hurt me, he only hurt himself — he only makes me stronger,” said Carter, who added that she’d be willing to wait on the couple again. “Just me serving them will let them know they did not get the best of me — and I truly mean that.”

Trump won by challenging the credibility of both the political and academic establishments, relentlessly highlighting discrepancies between their depiction of the United States’ political economy and the reality that many voters experienced. Like Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, he started drawing large crowds by breaking ranks with his party’s mainstream. While Hillary Clinton and Republican rivals such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio tried to build coalitions based on cultural issues and partisan traditions, Trump and Sanders set their sights squarely on what mattered most to voters: a political economy in which elected officials strongly promoted a broad-based prosperity that included them.

How did the other candidates miss this central theme? My sense is that they didn’t; rather, their efforts to attract a broad spectrum of voters were constrained by a system that makes it extremely difficult to fund a credible political campaign without catering slavishly to the wealthiest sliver of American society. That system invited rebellion, and Trump and Sanders – by self-financing and grassroots fundraising, respectively – were ideally positioned to lead one.

The other candidates were also constrained by party orthodoxy, which has long kept Democrats and Republicans alike from willingly addressing the structural inequities in the American economy head-on. Doing so would require candor about such hard issues as technological disruption and globalization. It would also require confronting the legacy of decades of lobbyist-written free-trade agreements, regulations, bailouts, and tax policies that have been funneling economic gains up the income ladder, while imposing budget austerity in response to the needs of most Americans. The story Trump told of a “rigged” system resonated with voters more than anything they had heard from their political leaders in quite some time.

But, eventually, something has to give. As wealth becomes ever more concentrated, a body politic suffering from widespread economic insecurity will begin to search for scapegoats – and the experts and pundits themselves were an ideal target this time around.

Chicago in the 1960s was a brutal place for poor people. Black, brown and white people all dealt with poverty, unemployment, police violence, substandard housing, inadequate schools and a lack of social services. Ethnic and racial groups each created their own social service and activist networks to combat every kind of oppression.

One was the Young Patriot Organization (YPO), which was based in Hillbilly Harlem, an uptown neighborhood of Chicago populated by displaced white southerners. Many YPO members were racist, and they flaunted controversial symbols associated with southern pride, such as the Confederate flag. But like blacks and Latinos, the white Young Patriots and their families experienced discrimination in Chicago. In their case, it was because they were poor and from the South.

Former members of the Chicago Panthers and YPO tell different versions of the same story of how the groups connected: Each attended the other’s organizing meetings and decided to work together on their common issues. Over time, the Black Panthers learned to tolerate Confederate flags as intransigent signs for rebellion. Their only stipulation was that the white Young Patriots denounce racism.

Eventually, Young Patriots rejected their deeply embedded ideas of white supremacy – and even the Confederate flag – as they realized how much they had in common with the Black Panthers and Latino Young Lords.

It didn’t take long. During the first week of 2017, the new Republican Congress has begun efforts to dismantle America’s health-care system. Their long-standing goal, consistent with their right-wing ideology, is to take away health insurance from tens of millions of Americans, privatize Medicare, make massive cuts to Medicaid and defund Planned Parenthood. At the same time, in the midst of grotesque and growing income and wealth inequality, they’re preparing to allow pharmaceutical companies to increase drug prices and to hand out obscene tax breaks for the top one-tenth of 1 percent.

Let me be absolutely clear: The impact of repealing large pieces of the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans are planning to put on Donald Trump’s desk on his first day in the White House, would be devastating. If Republicans get their way, 30 million Americans, 82 percent of whom are from working families, will lose their health insurance. With Medicare privatized, seniors will see their premiums increase by as much as 50 percent while their benefits are cut and funding for nursing-home care dries up. Underfunded hospitals around the country, particularly in rural areas, could be forced to close their doors, leaving millions of Americans with nowhere to turn for critical medical care. Patient protections, like preventing insurance companies from denying coverage because of a preexisting condition, removing the cap on maximum health-care benefits, allowing children to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until age 26 and preventing discrimination by insurers, would be eliminated.

Trump now has a choice: He can tell the American people that these campaign promises were lies and that he never intended to keep them. Or (and I hope this is the case) he can instruct his Republican colleagues to end their efforts to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and inform them that if they don’t, he will veto any bills that cut those life-and-death programs.

Fifteen years ago, Donald Trump said he was for universal health care. I hope he still is. The truth is we shouldn’t be debating whether to take health care away from 30 million Americans. We should be finding ways to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all people as a right. This is the conversation American policymakers need to be having right now. And we’re not going to let Trump or Congress forget it.

Bernie Sanders is speaking at a town hall tonight on CNN. The one hour event will take place at George Washington University and it will be broadcast live on CNN, CNN International, and CNN en Espanol. Sanders will sit down with Chris Cuomo and discuss major issues facing the nation, and the Democratic Party’s plan for dealing with a Trump administration. We’ve got all the information below on how you can watch a live stream of the town hall tonight.

CNN will offer a live stream of the town hall on Monday, January 9, starting at 9 p.m. Eastern. Journalists and audience members will get a chance to ask Bernie questions during the event.

The town hall will be live streamed on CNNgo, which is available online and on mobile devices.

You can access CNN’s free live stream of the debate at this link.