The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

Get my Daily BS twice-a-day news stack directly to your email.


Carville fires back after Sanders tells him to start his own party

by

 

DAILY BS BULLETIN

  • James Carville says a socialist takeover could split the Democratic Party after Bernie Sanders told him to “start his own party.”
  • Sanders defended Hasan Piker despite his infamous 9/11 remark, while moderates warn Abdul El-Sayed’s alliance with the streamer could cost Democrats Michigan.

James Carville says a socialist takeover could cause a full-blown Democratic Party schism after Sen. Bernie Sanders suggested the veteran strategist should pack his bags and start another party if he refuses to share one with Hasan Piker.

Carville responded Thursday, telling Fox News that Democratic primary voters will ultimately decide whether the party follows its traditional liberal wing or marches behind its ascendant socialist faction.

“That probably would result in some kind of schism in the party.”

Carville said he remains confident Democrats will reject a full socialist takeover.

“I think it’s more likely than not that the Democrats embrace sanity.”

But if the party follows Sanders, Piker and newly nominated Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Carville made clear that his participation has an expiration date.

“I’m going to be 82, OK, fine, go ahead, but not with me.”

The dispute is no longer an obscure cable-news quarrel. El-Sayed’s narrow victory over establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens has transformed it into a genuine test of which faction controls the Democratic Party—and whether that faction can win a battleground state.

During a CNN interview Tuesday, Abby Phillip asked Sanders whether Carville or Piker belonged in the Democratic coalition.

Carville previously vowed he would not remain if Piker became one of the party’s leading voices.

Sanders did not hesitate.

“Well, that’s not much of a choice.”

He continued:

“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.”

There is one delightful procedural wrinkle: Sanders is an independent.

The senator who has declined to become a registered Democrat is now instructing one of the Democratic Party’s most famous strategists to vacate the premises.

Apparently, Bernie is not on the lease, but he has changed the locks.

Sanders argued that Piker should be welcomed into a Democratic “big tent.” He said ideological questions could also be raised about establishment Democrats who accept financial-industry, cryptocurrency or artificial-intelligence money, or support Israel’s government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“You can pick whatever you want to pick.”

“But I think we need a big tent,” Sanders added, “and I think people like Piker should be welcomed into that, certainly.”

The tent is apparently spacious enough for a socialist streamer who once said America “deserved 9/11,” but Carville is standing outside beside the portable toilets.

Phillip pressed Sanders about Piker’s infamous 2019 declaration that “America deserved 9/11.”

Piker later insisted he “obviously” did not believe American civilians deserved the terrorist attacks. He described the remark as an intentionally provocative criticism of American foreign policy.

Sanders called the statement indefensible—but not disqualifying.

“I think that’s a dumb statement.”

The Vermont senator then offered a defense familiar to anyone who has worked behind a live microphone.

“When you’re doing radio, whatever they do, podcasts three hours a day, you say dumb things.”

Sanders urged Democrats to look at the “totality” of Piker’s views and rise above “cancel culture.”

That might be more persuasive if the offending statement involved confusing Iowa with Idaho or accidentally insulting a senator’s haircut. “America deserved 9/11” is not an ordinary broadcasting blooper.

Nearly 3,000 people were murdered.

Piker’s controversial record also extends beyond one remark. He has defended Hamas’ “right to resist militarily,” said Hamas was “a thousand times better” than Israel and faced criticism over comments appearing to dismiss allegations of sexual violence committed during the October 7 attacks.

Sanders did not address those controversies in detail.

Carville has repeatedly warned that Piker’s growing influence represents both a moral and electoral danger.

“I am not going to be in the same party with Hasan Piker.”

“If he becomes a force in a Democratic Party, I’m out of here,” Carville told Fox News.

“I have no intention of ever being in the same political party with that guy.”

Carville predicted the conflict cannot end with both men remaining under the same partisan roof.

“One of us is going to leave. It might even be me.”

He has even left open an exceedingly unlikely path to becoming a Republican. Asked whether he would switch parties if Democrats fully embraced socialism and Republicans adopted Bill Clinton-era policies, Carville compared the scenario to flying to the moon.

“If the Democrats went crazy and the Republicans went sane, then I probably would be a Republican.”

For now, Carville plans to remain and fight.

“Until Democratic voters choose the direction of the party, I’ll try to do all I can to help them make the right choice.”

Piker and El-Sayed treated Carville’s possible departure less as a warning than a campaign benefit. Before Michigan’s primary, El-Sayed joined Piker’s streaming channel to discuss the establishment’s “full-on freakout” over their alliance.

“Now James Carville is talking about leaving the party,” Piker said.

He also mentioned Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, another critic of the socialist wing.

“We got John Fetterman, James Carville fantasizing about leaving the party. I’m like, you’re sweetening the deal.”

El-Sayed argued that Carville and other Clinton-era Democrats pulled the party away from working-class populism and toward corporate interests.

He subsequently defeated Stevens, giving the progressive movement its most significant statewide victory in a purple state.

El-Sayed has not distanced himself from Piker since winning. When recently asked whether he would continue working with the streamer, El-Sayed redirected the discussion toward Michigan voters instead of answering directly, according to the New York Post.

That refusal has intensified concern among some Jewish Michigan voters already troubled by El-Sayed’s hostility toward American military aid for Israel and his description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide.”

The center-left organization Third Way warned that Sanders’ embrace of Piker could become a general-election weapon for Republican Mike Rogers.

“Embracing extremism will only serve to hand Republicans a key pickup opportunity and imperil Democrats elsewhere.”

Third Way said its post-2024 polling found battleground voters viewed Democrats as more extreme than Republicans, 44% to 41%.

The organization predicted that Republican advertisements will connect El-Sayed directly to Piker’s most inflammatory remarks.

“Videos of El-Sayed with his arms around Hasan Piker alongside anti-American and misogynistic quotes” will flood swing voters’ social-media feeds.

Third Way estimates that El-Sayed must capture more than 60% of moderate voters to win Michigan.

“That’s not spin—that’s math.”

Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey has delivered a similar warning, accusing socialists of trying to “hijack” the party. His proposed solution sounded remarkably familiar:

“They should start their own party.”

That perfectly summarizes the Democratic family meeting.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

today’s hot news