Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) this week urged Democratic strategist James Carville to “start his own party” rather than to continue to speak out against the rise of progressive insurgents.
Speaking to CNN’s Abby Phillip late Tuesday, Sanders was asked about Carville’s recent claim that he has “no intention of ever being in the same political party” as leftist Twitch streamer and activist Hasan Piker, whom he deemed a “blowhard.”
A longtime critic of the Democratic establishment, Piker campaigned with Abdul El-Sayed, who on Tuesday secured the Democratic nomination for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat, and has backed democratic socialist lawmakers like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Sanders, however, suggested Carville’s dismissal of Piker’s stance was short-sighted, noting: “If Mr. Carville doesn’t want to be in my party, the party that I belong to, that Piker, that El-Sayed belongs to, he can start his own party.”
While Sanders didn’t single out any politicians by name, he went on to suggest many establishment Democrats were reliant on money from pro-Israel groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as well as the AI industry.
“You can pick whatever you want to pick,” he said. “But I think that we need a big tent, and I think people like Piker should be welcomed into that, certainly.”
Carville, who rose to prominence in the early 1990s as one of former President Bill Clinton’s lead strategists, was pitted against Piker on CNN’s “The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper” in an episode that aired last Sunday.
In a teaser clip from the program, Carville pushed back against Piker’s assertion that many Democratic voters were choosing to “seek out alternatives” rather than to support moderates.
“I see challenges from the ‘progressive left,’ and these people are too hardheaded to know that they’re not popular,” Carville said. “People don’t like them. They never run against Republicans, they just run against other Democrats, and their only message is: ‘We’re going to blow everything up.’”
He then turned his attention to Sanders directly, noting: “Bernie Sanders ran for president twice. You know what he did twice? He lost by a lot.”