MSNBC is the friendliest place right now for ultra-liberal politics, but not everyone at the cable news network is on board.
Anchor Brian Williams, for example, was none too pleased with some of the proposals touted Tuesday evening during the third Democratic primary debate, including the “Medicare for all” plan backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
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“You got one side of the party offering free salad bar and breadsticks, everything right up to that, and the other side of the party trying to be the moderates, saying: ‘We can’t promise this stuff,’” Williams remarked after the debate.
Washington Post reporter and MSNBC contributor Robert Costa responded, noting correctly that the few moderates running for the Democratic Party’s nomination are struggling to get out of the shadow of their progressive colleagues.
“Whether it was former Governor Hickenlooper of Colorado or Senator Klobuchar of Minnesota or Congressman Ryan, they found themselves actually not serving from question to question as the foil against the liberal favorites on stage, Senator Sanders and Senator Warren,” Costa said.
Elsewhere, MSNBC election data wonk Steve Kornacki cited data suggesting the ultra-liberal policies promoted Tuesday evening by Sanders, Warren, and others could be political poison for the party that hopes to oust President Trump in 2020.
“There are some interesting divides here,” he said, citing polling data that shows policies like decriminalizing border crossings and giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants are generally unpopular with voters.
About 54% of general election voters believe eliminating private insurance is a bad idea, Kornacki noted, rattling off polling data. Meanwhile, 66% of voters oppose decriminalizing border crossings (though self-professed Democratic voters are split on the issue). Likewise, 62% of voters oppose free healthcare for illegal immigrants (again, the issue is supported almost entirely by respondents who identify as Democrats).
“So you see, those sort of moderate candidates, this is what they’re trying to express,” Kornacki said. “But when the energy on the Democratic side is somewhere else, that’s the power behind those comebacks you heard from Warren and Sanders.”
These polling trends, paired with Williams’ “free salad bar” crack, come after several 2020 candidates, including Ryan, Hickenlooper, and former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland, warned repeatedly that the brand of politics championed by Sanders and Warren will kill the Democratic Party’s chances of defeating Trump.
Warren, of course, does not see it that way. In her world, running for president means supporting big, beautiful liberal policies.
“I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for the president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for. I don’t get it,” Warren said in response to Delaney’s protestations.
She added in what liberal commentators have characterized as her breakout moment of the evening, “Our biggest problem in Washington is corruption. It is giant corporations that have taken our government and that are holding it by the throat, and we need to have the courage to fight back against that and until we’re ready to do that, it’s just more of the same. Well, I’m ready to get in this fight.”
