Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville absolutely exploded during an appearance on MSNBC Saturday night, calling Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) all but inevitable nomination as the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate “political suicide,” and suggesting that Vladimir Putin is “happy” that the Democrats are helping to get President Donald Trump re-elected.
Carville was addressing stories that floated Saturday indicating that Russian operatives were gaming the system for Sanders, helping to seed social media conversations and press voters to cast a ballot for the Vermont socialist. So far, there appears to be little available evidence for the claim and it’s not clear where the claim originated. NSA chief Robert O’Brien told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “I haven’t seen any intelligence to support the reports that were leaked out,” though a lawmaker reportedly pressed security officials for evidence of the claim in a briefing on Saturday.
President Donald Trump, speaking Sunday, blamed Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Democrat in charge of the House impeachment inquiry and, later, the prosecution in the president’s Senate impeachment trial, of deliberately leaking the information in order to convince Democrats not to vote for Sanders.
“Just another Shifty Schiff leak,” the president said on Twitter Sunday, referring to the news about Russia backing Sanders. “Isn’t there a law about this stuff?”
James Carville, at least, believes the story, according to the New York Post, and he told MSNBC that Sanders is taking the Democratic party down a dangerous path.
“The happiest person right now is Vladimir Putin,” Carville said Saturday in an interview during the Nevada caucuses which Sanders won handily by a nearly two-to-one margin.
“I don’t think Sanders wants Putin to help,” Carville continued, reassuring MSNBC hosts that he didn’t believe the Vermont socialist was in direct communication with the Kremlin the way many Democrats suspected the Trump campaign was (it later turned out, of course, that while Russia made some overtures to high-profile Trump officials, there was no collaboration).
“I think they don’t like this story. But the story is a fact,” Carville continued. “This thing is going very well for Vladimir Putin. I promise you. He’s probably staying up watching this right now. How you doing, Vlad?”
He then concluded by noting that electing Sanders was a “straight line” to a Trump victory in November.
The road to the White House (or the road to return to the White House) may not be as cut and dry as Carville makes it out to be, but certainly the Trump administration is hoping to face off against Sanders in the general election, as evidence by President Donald Trump’s vocal support of Sanders’ bid. Over the last several days, the president has tweeted repeatedly, warning Sanders’ supporters that the nomination is being “fixed” and “stolen.”
Although Carville is a well-known strategist, having gotten Bill Clinton to the White House, many far-left progressives, enchanted with a Sanders blowout win, were quick to insult Carville and his proclamation.
“Anyone who thinks that he can predict the future in politics is a grandiose idiot. (James Carville is an old man; he can’t predict how young people will vote.),” said one, apparently unaware that young people do not appear to be a key moveable demographic in the 2020 elections.
Others accused Carville of abject racism: “James Carville says, uninterrupted, that voters are “fools” if they’re voting for Bernie because they think he can beat Trump. That’s his message to the 50% of latinos and 27% of black people who just voted for Bernie in Nevada. Bunch of idiots that don’t know better,” added another.
Sanders and his supporters have, so far, been tuning out the naysayers, convinced that Sanders will get enough delegates to win the Democratic presidential nomination outright.
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