Bernie Sanders Makes Eyebrow Raising Comments On Podcast

By
Gregory McMullen
-

In a moment that stunned progressives and critics alike, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) offered a rare, unscripted concession during a recent interview on Flagrant, hosted by comedian and lifelong Democrat Andrew Schulz. Pressed on the Democratic Party’s handling of its primary elections, Sanders admitted that the party’s recent track record could indeed be viewed as a threat to democracy—an admission that now reverberates across a political landscape long dominated by narratives of Republican autocracy.

The exchange unfolded as Schulz laid out a growing frustration shared by many disillusioned Democratic voters who feel robbed of a genuine say in their party’s leadership choices—a frustration rooted in the 2016 and 2020 primaries, when Sanders himself was widely seen as a grassroots favorite, only to be kneecapped by the party machine.

“We felt that over the last four elections, Democrats… didn’t have a say on who could be president,” Schulz said. “It felt like they stole it from you.”

Sanders, known for his fiery populist tone on the campaign trail, took a more subdued route in response. While acknowledging the sentiment—one even shared by his wife—he offered a pragmatic defense of endorsing Hillary Clinton in 2016, calling it a matter of “choosing between Clinton or Trump.”


But when Schulz’s co-host Akaash Singh hit Sanders with the blunt question—“If there hasn’t been a fair primary since 2008, are they not also a threat to democracy?”—Sanders didn’t sidestep.

“Fair enough,” he replied. “That is — yeah. I’m not going to argue with that.”

The moment was striking not only for its honesty but for its political irony. Sanders has long accused Republicans—and Trump in particular—of authoritarianism, often framing GOP policies as existential threats to American democracy. In 2020, he called Trump “the greatest threat to this country in modern history.” Yet in 2024, it is the Democratic Party that overruled its own primary process to oust Joe Biden and install Kamala Harris atop the ticket—just months before the election.

That decision came without a single nationwide primary vote in support of Harris, leading critics to call it an elite coup wrapped in strategic marketing. It was a move eerily reminiscent of what Sanders experienced in 2016 and 2020: a party tipping the scales behind closed doors, regardless of what the base wanted.

Sanders’ remarks validate what many have believed for years: the Democratic primary process has become increasingly controlled, top-down, and preordained. From the superdelegate firewall in 2016 to coordinated dropouts in 2020 that cleared the field for Biden, and now the abrupt replacement of Biden with Harris in 2024, the pattern is unmistakable.


The irony is as thick as it is sobering: the party that has branded itself as the last bulwark against authoritarianism is now grappling with the mirror image of the very accusation it levels against its opponents. And Sanders, whether intentionally or not, has just admitted it out loud.

For Sanders’ progressive base, the admission is bittersweet. It’s validation of the long-held belief that establishment Democrats have blocked transformational change, not because of public rejection, but because of institutional manipulation. For independents and moderate Democrats, it raises serious concerns about transparency, accountability, and the health of internal democracy within one of America’s two major parties.

Meanwhile, the Republican camp is likely to seize on this moment as evidence that the party of “defending democracy” has lost the moral high ground. With Trump campaigning as the anti-establishment outsider once again, Sanders’ confession may add fuel to a fire already smoldering under the Democratic base.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR