Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont reportedly berated NBC and MSNBC executives ahead of last week’s presidential debate, complaining about the network’s coverage of his campaign.
The report that the 2020 presidential hopeful yelled at top officials for the outlet is another example of the fraught relationship between Sanders and the network.
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Sanders stormed into the staging area for Wednesday’s primary debate in Las Vegas, according to a New York Post report quoting an unnamed witness. “Bernie marched right up to NBC and MSNBC’s head of creative production and began jabbing his finger right in his face, yelling, ‘Your coverage of my campaign is not fair … Your questions tonight are not going to be fair to me,’” to which the executive told the candidate he’d “be treated fairly,” the source recounted.
The socialist also said he was “upset” because the “network has not been playing a fair role in this campaign” to MSNBC President Phil Griffin, according to a different anonymous insider.
Sanders’s campaign has faced criticism from the network.
Last month, host Joy Reid had a body-language expert on her show who claimed the senator’s posture proved he was “lying” in regards to a viral moment on the debate stage between him and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
On the day of the Iowa caucuses, network anchor Chris Matthews declared Sanders is “not going to be president.” Days later, he once again attacked Sanders and said, “I have my own views of the word socialist, and I’d be glad to share them … They go back to the early 1950s. I have an attitude about them. I remember the Cold War.”
This commentary from the network led Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s campaign manager, to argue Fox News has been “more fair than MSNBC.”
“Fox is often yelling about Bernie Sanders’s socialism, but they’re still giving our campaign the opportunity to make our case in a fair manner, unlike MSNBC, which has credibility with the Left and is constantly undermining the Bernie Sanders campaign,” he added.
Still, Deadline: White House anchor Nicolle Wallace, who served as White House communications director in the George W. Bush administration, said she would “gladly and easily” vote for Sanders if he won the primary.
