Isn't it the job of the press to vet the presidential candidates? On Sunday's This Week on ABC, former Bush political director Sara Fagen said Bernie Sanders "really hasn't been vetted yet." But wait -- he ran for president in 2016, and wasn't vetted? Rahm Emanuel was complaining that they had a Democrat debate in Las Vegas, site of a horrific mass shooting, and the NBC moderators didn't ask a gun-control question. Fagen agreed Sanders was on the "wrong side of the Democratic Party on guns for a long time." She also mentioned all the old video clips of Sanders praising communist regimes.
Chris Christie just put it out there: The press doesn't want to do the vetting on Bernie. So much for our brave guardians of democracy.
CHRIS CHRISTIE: But who is the messenger? See, I agree with Sara about him being vetted, but who is going to do it? You know, the gun question wasn't asked. Now imagine this -- forget about the other candidates -- on the panel.
RAHM EMANUEL: We've done seven hours on Medicare for All in the last nine debates and not one...
CHRISTIE: On the panel no one asked the question on guns. If that were a Republican debate with that same panel of journalists, you could guarantee that guns would be an early-on question. So that's one problem. Who is going to do the vetting? The press doesn't seem to want to do the vetting on this.
Secondly, which of those candidates is going to show the aptitude, George, to really vet Bernie Sanders. You've got to give him credit. Sanders has stood up there in the middle of that stage -- when Donald Trump was in the middle of that stage, people were hitting him.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Not that much.
CHRISTIE: No no, listen, the press certainly was, the media was, right?
STEPHANOPOULOS: The press, yeah, but --
CHRISTIE: But that's what I'm saying, there's two elements of a debate, right, that can hurt you. Either the questions that are being asked and how aggressive the panelists are at you, or your opponents.
In this instance, Sanders has skated with both! They don't go after him.
Christie expressed how much the Republicans would enjoy Democrats denying Sanders the nomination at the convention in Milwaukee by putting someone like Joe Biden over the top with establishment super-delegates. "The only thing better than running against a Sanders-dominated party for Republicans is to have somebody else there with a completely divided Democratic Party."
Stephanopoulos replied "That's a pretty fair analysis."
