The journalists at CNN again went after Marco Rubio on abortion, Thursday. Veteran reporter Carl Bernstein appeared on New Day to weigh in on the state of the presidential race. Singling out the pro-life senator, Bernstein suggested Rubio "has painted himself so far to the right" and "has put abortion so front and center in this campaign as to render his candidacy unelectable, probably, in terms of the general electorate, no matter how articulate he might have appeared in that debate."
The Watergate era-author praised moderate John Kasich as a "very different kind of Republican" who "said he'll take Medicaid funds, who has a different position on immigration than those who are pandering or appealing to the base."
On August 7, Chris Cuomo derided Rubio as "backward" on abortion. On August 11, the journalist pushed Donald Trump to support abortion rights and Planned Parenthood.
On the issue of Hillary Clinton and her e-mail server, Bernstein added some caveats and noted that Jeb Bush had also used a private server. However, he then added, "At the same time, Hillary's server shenanigans, for lack of a better word at the time, and it goes deeper than that, are going to continue to plague her because - because what happened is real."
Interestingly, Bernstein also used his appearance to talk up Joe Biden as a possible candidate.
A partial transcript of the August 13 segment is below:
CARL BERNSTEIN: What we need to keep our eye on is who could be elected in a general election? And that means someone who might not just appeal to the Republican base in Iowa, but to the country at large. And for that, you have to look at what's happening with Fiorina. You have to look at what's happening with Kasich, in particular, who is a very different kind of Republican, who said he'll take Medicaid funds, who has a different position on immigration than those who are pandering or appealing to the base.
The other surprise, I think, is Rubio, who has painted himself so far to the right, who has put abortion so front and center in this campaign as to render his candidacy unelectable, probably, in terms of the general electorate, no matter how articulate he might have appeared in that debate. But let's go back to the surprises. The surprise is that both Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton are in trouble with their bases, to some extent. Hillary's support -
CABRERA: Why do you think Hillary's in trouble when you look at that - the poll in Iowa and she has 50 percent of the majority supporting her there?
BERNSTEIN: I - I think - let's say something about Iowa. The idea thatabout a couple thousand people have the power of tens of millions of people in this country to vote says something about how screwed up this political system is and about our electorate - electoral process. And once we get past Iowa and past New Hampshire, which we will, there will be some relative sanity and balance restored to the electoral process. But they're disproportionate role, those two states, can't be ignored.
But Hillary is in trouble because she has done damage to herself that her enemies are taking advantage of the situation with the server. She might get some good news because Bush has his owns, to a server, quote, problem. He too used a private server. There's a story in "The Washington Post" today about it. He discussed National Guard deployments, I believe, in the Middle East on that server.
At the same time, Hillary's server shenanigans, for lack of a better word at the time, and it goes deeper than that, are going to continue to plague her because - because what happened is real.
CUOMO: Right.
BERNSTEIN: And what happened is that classified information, which should have remained classified, went across this server and we don't know how and whether it was compromised. But if you look at Hillary Clinton's own comments about people being prosecuted for breaching national security through leaks and through their servers being inadequate -
CUOMO: The concern is obvious.
BERNSTEIN: -- even though you're talking about -
CUOMO: The concern is obvious.
BERNSTEIN: -- private Manning and others. It's a problem and it's not going to go away. But again, I come back to Biden.
