Whatever plan CNN had by essentially trashing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in favor of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) during the presidential debate this week, it has sorely backfired. Now, even pundits as far-left as Samantha Bee are calling out the network for shamelessly pitting the two candidates against each other.
Speaking on her show “Full Frontal” on Wednesday night, Bee said that CNN is trying to get Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren “to fight.”
“The only way they could be trying harder to get them to fight is if they personally oiled up these senior citizens and threw them into the Octagon,” Bee said, as reported by The Daily Beast.
Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate reached a dramatic high-point when CNN moderator Abby Philip asked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to address a recent report alleging that he told Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) back in 2018 that a woman could not win the presidency against Donald Trump.
“So, Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you’re saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election?” Phillips asked the Vermont senator.
“That is correct,” Sanders replied.
Phillips then proceeded to ask Warren how she felt during her conversation with Bernie as if the story were clearly true.
“Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?” asked Phillip, tacitly painting Sanders as a liar.
“I disagreed,” Warren replied. “Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie. But, look, this question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised, and it’s time for us to attack it head-on.”
Following that dismal display of media malfeasance, Sanders and Warren had a tense meeting in the post-debate in which the senator from Massachusetts refused to shake Sanders’ hand. Bee was especially unappreciative of the media building hype around that particular moment.
“That’s it? That’s what’s dominated our national discourse for 36 hours?” Bee wondered aloud. “Two great candidates who are a little sad and disappointed in each other over a misunderstanding?”
Even when it came to the prospect of Bernie Sanders possibly telling Warren back in 2018 that a woman couldn’t beat Trump – a charge he adamantly denies – Bee joked that she herself “might have shouted it into a bottle of wine or 10.”
“Look, we have not yet found a way to have nuanced conversations about how sexism impacts female candidates,” Bee said. “But I will tell you one thing I know for sure. This was the last debate before the Iowa caucus and if we’re having fights, they should be about how to protect reproductive rights, and how to fight gun violence and how Biden looks like he got run through The Irishman de-aging machine.”
Following the debate on Wednesday, several media figures trashed CNN as the hashtag #CNNIsGarbage began trending on social media. Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC said Abby Philip made a serious mistake.
“I’m completely confused as to why it turned from Bernie Sanders saying, ‘I didn’t say it,’ to Elizabeth Warren being asked, ‘what did you think when he said it?’ He says he didn’t say it. So you turn to Elizabeth Warren and say, ‘did he say it?’ That’s the issue. I mean, it’s bizarre,” Brzezinski said on Wednesday.