CNN political commentator and former Obama administration official Van Jones offered some rather kind words for socialist Senator Bernie Sanders following Thursday’s CNN Democratic Debate in praising his “extraordinary” “level of integrity” for demanding the need for “Palestinian rights” in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Prior to Jones opining that Sanders “got his clock cleaned” in the gun control segment, Jones proclaimed that he was struck by how “Bernie Sanders' stand for Palestinian children and Palestinian rights was extraordinary.”
Jones acknowledged that the position that Sanders took was an “interesting” one to take with the New York primary on Tuesday, but was still special since “I haven't seen anybody at his level of the game say, look, let's have a more balanced approach.”
Before pivoting to guns, Jones added that it took both “courage” and “integrity” to do what Sanders did on such a long-standing conflict in the Middle East:
That takes a level of courage and a level of integrity. You can disagree with it, you can feel badly about it, you can be proud of it but something happened tonight and part of what is happening with this Bernie Sanders candidacy is that — and the Trump candidacy as well is that what's possible to talk about in American life is beginning to expand — for better or for worse and I thought that was extraordinary.
Jones later circled back to this topic after his thoughts about how he thought Sanders lost to the more-liberal Clinton on gun control: “I think big picture, whatever you say, that was an extraordinary moment in American politics for someone to take the position that he took, like it or not.”
The relevant portion of the transcript from CNN’s AC360 Post Debate Special on April 14 can be found below.
CNN’s AC360 Post Debate Special
April 14, 2016
11:20 p.m. Eastern
VAN JONES: Well, I think that, more than anything else, Bernie Sanders' stand for Palestinian children and Palestinian rights was extraordinary. It's not just that it was, you know, interesting politics in New York. It's that I've never seen a Democratic candidate trying to be president — I haven't seen a Republican, I haven't seen anybody at his level of the game say, look, let's have a more balanced approach. That takes a level of courage and a level of integrity. You can disagree with it, you can feel badly about it, you can be proud of it but something happened tonight and part of what is happening with this Bernie Sanders candidacy is that — and the Trump candidacy as well is that what's possible to talk about in American life is beginning to expand — for better or for worse and I thought that was extraordinary. On the other hand, I thought he got his clock cleaned on the gun question and it was ugly. I was hoping they would cut to commercial. I mean, it was really, really bad and he didn't seem to have any ability to punch back. He could have said, well, you know, you've come a long way from Annie Oakley. Remember? Cause in 2008, she was hugging the gun lobby so much that Barack Obama called her Annie Oakley. He had nothing and he looked physically deflated, so but I think big picture, whatever you say, that was an extraordinary moment in American politics for someone to take the position that he took, like it or not.
