DISARRAY: Bernie Nearly Ends ABC Interview Over Question About AOC

Jorge Bonilla
March 23rd, 2025 6:45 PM

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Sycophancy only gets you so far, as proven by Senator Bernie Sanders’ interview with ABC’s Jon Karl for This Week. Despite squeeing all over him and New York socialist firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to tease the interview, Bernie still threatened to end it over a question implying support for a primary against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

First, the squeeing part:

JON KARL: Bernie is back.

Bernie SANDERS: Hey, Mr. Trump, people fought and died to create a democratic society. You're not going to take it away from us.

KARL: 83-year-old Independent Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing crowds even bigger than he did as a presidential candidate.

SAM GAO: Feeling the Bern?

KARL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

KARL: For the past month, Sanders has taken his fight against President Donald Trump on the road. He's billing it the "Fighting Oligarchy" tour.

SANDERS: We will not allow America to become an oligarchy.

KARL: In Denver, the anti-Trump sentiment was strong.

EILEEN MCCARRON: Oh, I think it's a disaster. And he -- he talks about he has a mandate -- he never had a mandate.

KARL: But so was the frustration with Democrats.

How's the Democratic Party doing, challenging this?

PATRICK LARZIK: They got to be a little tougher.

SUSAN BAKER: Quit being a bunch of doormats.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels like we're left stranded when everything feels like it is crumbling.

Both Karl’s triumphant proclamation that “BERNIE’S BACK” and the mindless assent to the rally attendee’s “feel the Bern” betray a wee bit too much enthusiasm for anything resembling positive activity on the left side of the aisle- or, in this case, the far left. To Karl, the Bernie rally clearly seemed like a bright spot amid all the “Democrats in Disarray” doom and gloom.

The actual interview with Sanders was more of what we’ve seen over the last decade: his rantings about billionaires and oligarchs, the current Democrat malaise, things that the Biden administration got wrong, and then Karl touched a third rail. Watch as Sanders blows out on Karl, circling back to “Democrats in disarray” and implicitly asking Sanders whether he’d endorse AOC in a Senate primary against Chuck Schumer:  

As Politico’s Rachel Bade would point out during the subsequent panel segment, Sanders is part of Schumer’s leadership team, so the very question put him in a weird spot. 

Will the Bernie Sanders movement emerge from the current chaos to lead the Democrats going forward? It’s too early to tell but as Karl demonstrates, the media are willing to grab on to anything resembling a life raft these days.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, March 23rd, 2025:

ABC THIS WEEK

3/23/25

9:29 AM

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: I want you to look at every level of office around you and support Democrats who actually fight, because those are the ones that can win against Republicans.

BERNIE SANDERS: I would not be telling you the truth if I didn't tell you that within the Democratic Party, there are billionaires who have undue influence. Democrats have turned their backs on the working class of this country.

JON KARL: That was Senator Bernie Sanders Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drawing more than 30,000 supporters in Denver on Friday. I was there and spoke with Senator Sanders after the rally about whether the Democratic Party can do anything to slow President Trump's agenda.

CROWD: Bernie, Bernie.

KARL: Bernie is back.

SANDERS: Hey, Mr. Trump, people fought and died to create a democratic society. You're not going to take it away from us.

KARL: 83-year-old Independent Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing crowds even bigger than he did as a presidential candidate.

SAM GAO: Feeling the Bern?

KARL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

KARL: For the past month, Sanders has taken his fight against President Donald Trump on the road. He's billing it the "Fighting Oligarchy" tour.

SANDERS: We will not allow America to become an oligarchy.

KARL: In Denver, the anti-Trump sentiment was strong.

EILEEN MCCARRON: Oh, I think it's a disaster. And he -- he talks about he has a mandate -- he never had a mandate.

KARL: But so was the frustration with Democrats.

How's the Democratic Party doing, challenging this?

PATRICK LARZIK: They got to be a little tougher.

SUSAN BAKER: Quit being a bunch of doormats.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels like we're left stranded when everything feels like it is crumbling.

KARL: Tour's western swing, Sanders was joined by New York Congresswoman AlexandriaOcasio-Cortez.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: He has handed the keys of the federal government to Elon Musk, and is selling off our country for parts to the richest people on the planet.

KARL: More than 30,000 showed up for their joint appearance in Denver.

SANDERS: Look, as you know, when you run for president, you do a lot of rallies.

KARL: Yeah.

SANDERS: And we have done a lot of big rallies. 32,000 people here is by far the largest rally I have ever done, and nobody's running for office. That tells you something.

KARL: So, what are you trying to accomplish with this tour?

SANDERS: I'm trying to make it clear to the people throughout the world and throughout our own country, that the American people are not going to sit idly by and allow Trump to establish an oligarchic form of government, where Musk and other billionaires are running our government. And we're not going to sit back and allow him to form an authoritarian form of society, undermining the Constitution, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and undoing what the -- you know, what the founding fathers of this country did in the 1790s, separation of powers, making sure that no one person had an extraordinary amount of power, and that is precisely what Trump is trying to do. He wants it all. Doesn't want Congress, he doesn't want the media, he doesn't want the judiciary. He wants all of the power; we cannot allow him to have that.

KARL: Well, I hear you telling people out there, fight back. What do you mean, though? How do these people -- how do they fight back?

SANDERS: Well, that's the question. We're working on it right now. But I think simply, first of all, coming here and showing the world that Americans are not going to sit back and take what Trump is doing is a good step forward. But obviously, what we need to do is what neither political party is capable of doing right now, and that is develop a strong grassroots movement prepared to run candidates, prepared to stand up and question candidates, demand responsibility from their elected officials to stand with working families and not just the 1 percent.

KARL: I've been covering you for a long, long time. I've heard you railing against millionaires and billionaires for a long time.

SANDERS: Hey, guess what?

KARL: Is it different?

SANDERS: Turns out a few other people are catching on to that, right?

KARL: Yeah.

SANDERS: I have been talking for many years about this country moving toward an oligarchy. And I think anybody who is not dumb, deaf or blind, is seeing precisely what is happening. Trump's inaugural, right behind him, three wealthiest guys in America. You know, Lincoln talked about a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Remember? Well, we got a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class. That's what we have.

KARL: So we're about 60 days into the Trump era, the second Trump era. How would you grade the Democratic Party's response?

SANDERS: Well, I would take us back even two years before that, before Trump was elected, in saying that it saddens me that when the Democrats had control of the Senate, they did virtually nothing for working people. I have to say that. I'm a member of the Democratic Caucus as an Independent, so I'm not going to lie to you and tell you otherwise.

KARL: Yeah.

SANDERS: And since then, do I think the Democrats have been effective in rallying the American people, in stopping Trump's movement toward oligarchy and authoritarianism? No, I don't.

KARL: Is there anything that you think Trump has done right?

SANDERS: Yeah. I mean, I think cracking down on fentanyl, making sure our borders are stronger. Look, nobody thinks illegal immigration is appropriate, and I happen to think we need comprehensive immigration reform, but I don't think it's appropriate for people to be coming across the border illegally. So, we've got to work now on comprehensive immigration reform. The idea that Trump has, I don't know what his latest numbers are.

He wants to deport 20 million people who are in this country who are undocumented. Well, you do that, you destroy the entire country. Because, I got news for you, Trump's billionaire friends are not going to pick the crops in California that feed us. They're not going to work in meat packing houses. That's what undocumented people are doing.

So, we need a variety of programs, guest worker programs, but mostly comprehensive immigration reform.

KARL: But you know illegal immigration, it exploded under Biden. And it had been high for times under Trump as well. But it exploded under Biden. And nothing was really done until his last year in office when he was –

SANDERS: Yes, should have done much better. No argument.

KARL: So, realistically, Republicans control the House. They control the White House. They control the Senate. So what, realistically, can be done?

SANDERS: Well, for major pieces of legislation, you still need 60 votes in the Senate. And let's be clear, and we – we have picked many of the spots that I've gone to in Wisconsin, in Iowa, in Michigan, have – we – we chose them carefully.

KAR: Yes.

SANDERS: And those are because they have Republican congressmen who won by small margins. Right now I don't know what the number is. I think if two or three Republicans out of 200 and whatever it is, 18 or whatever they got, choose not to support giving tax breaks to billionaires and cutting Medicaid and education, we can defeat this big supplemental bill, “the beautiful bill” that Trump wants to see passed.

So, right now, what we're trying to do is put pressure on those Congressional districts, demand that Republican congresspeople sit down and talk to their constituents and explain why they think it's a good idea to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1 percent and cut veterans programs, cut Medicaid, cut Social Security, cut education.

KARL: You said that the passage of this bill, the continuing resolution, was a, “absolute failure of Democratic leadership.” Who are you talking about?

SANDERS: Well, Schumer is the leader of the party, and it should not have happened, period. No question about it.

But, you know, when we talk about Democratic leadership, we're talking about the Democratic Party in general, you know. So I – look, there's been nobody more critical of Chuck Schumer than I have been. And not just on this thing. But the bottom line is not just Chuck Schumer. It's not just Chuck Schumer. It is – you've got a Democratic Party in general that is dominated by billionaires, just as the Republican Party is, that is – operates under the leadership of a bunch of inside the beltway consultants, very well paid, who are way out of touch with the 32,000 people who are here today.

KARL (voice over): Ocasio-Cortez’s criticism of Schumer has been harsher, fueling speculation she’ll challenge him in the Democratic primary when he is up for re-election in three years. For his part, Sanders doesn’t want to talk about whether or not Schumer should remain the Democratic leader in the Senate. And he got irritated when I asked him about the possibility of AOC running, abruptly getting up to end the interview.

KARL: OK, you're out there with the AOC today.

SANDERS: Yes.

KARL: Do you see her as a future of the progressive –

SANDERS: We have one of the untold stories –

KARL: Yes.

SANDERS: Of what's going on in current American politics, is that in the House of Representatives, you have dozens and dozens of strong, smart, disciplined, hard-working young people in the Progressive Caucus.

And, you know, way back when, when I first came to the Congress in the House, I helped form the Progressive Caucus. We had five people in it at that time. Now they have close to 100. So, you got a whole lot of good people. Alexandria is extraordinary. I am so impressed by her work in Congress and her – just, she inspires young people all over the country.

KARL: Would you like to see her join you in the Senate?

SANDERS: I – right now we have, as I said, just a whole lot of people in the Congress. OK, Jonathan, thanks.

KARL: Wait, I got one more – I got one more. This is an important –

SANDERS: No, I asked you –

KARL: OK.

SANDERS: No, you want to do nonsense. Do nonsense.

KARL: No.

SANDERS: I don't want to talk about inside the beltway stuff. I got 32,000 people –

KARL: I was just asking you about AOC because she was out there with you.

SANDERS: Well, you know, fine, but I don't want to talk about this – what was the last question?

KARL: I was just going to ask you one more question about you. I mean, that’s all. I was – it was literally your last –

SANDERS: All right, what – what is your question?

KARL: Well, I mean, it's easier if you're sitting.

I mean, I want to ask you about your future. This is the biggest crowd. You said – you ran for president twice. This is the biggest crowd you've ever seen. Are we going to see you run again? What's your, what's your future?

SANDERS: No, right now I'm very proud that the people of the state of Vermont sent me back to the Senate with 63 percent of the vote.

KARL: Yes.

SANDERS: Right now I’m Vermont’s senator. That's what I do. And I'm very happy to do it. I am 83 years of age. So – and I'm tired.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL: All right, our thanks to Senator Sanders for taking the time to talk to us and for letting us get that last question in.

 

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