‘Last night on CNN, Bernie Sanders called me a political hack. That’s exactly who the f— I am!’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) After Democratic strategist James Carville raised concerns about Sen. Bernie Sanders’s electability, the presidential candidate called Carville a “hack.”
Carville’s response was simple: “At least I’m not a communist.”
Carville, a longtime Clinton ally and former campaign manager, has repeatedly sounded the alarm about Sanders’s campaign, arguing that his radical policies would only help President Donald Trump win reelection in November.
He also criticized Sanders’s online fandom, which he referred to as “a cult.”
Sanders returned the fire during an interview with CNN on Wednesday: “James, in all due respect, is a political hack,” Sanders said.
“We are taking on Trump, the Republican establishment, Carville and the Democratic establishment,” Sanders continued. “But at the end of the day, the grassroots movement that we are putting together — of young people, of working people, of people of color—want real change.”
Carville dismissed Sanders’s criticism.
“Last night on CNN, Bernie Sanders called me a political hack,” Carville said. “That’s exactly who the f— I am! I am a political hack! I am not an ideologue. I am not a purist. He thinks it’s a pejorative. I kind of like it! At least I’m not a communist.”
Trump has also referred to Sanders as a “communist.”
“I think he’s a communist. I mean, you know, look, I think of communism when I think of Bernie,” Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “Now, you could say socialist, but didn’t he get married in Moscow?”
Sanders has denied the label, but back in 1972, he admitted he had no problem being associated with communism.
“I don’t mind people coming up and calling me a communist,” Sanders, then a gubernatorial protest candidate for the socialist Liberty Union Party, said during a campaign pitch in Vermont.