Oh THAT Bernie Sanders: Meet the Press Resumes Talking About Clinton’s Chief Challenger

The Washington Post‘s Ruth Marcus and Meet the Press‘s Chuck Todd discussing Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacy–under the banner of “Obama vs. Warren.”

After FAIR published an Action Alert (5/4/15) pointing out that NBC‘s Meet the Press had ignored Sen. Bernie Sanders’ announcement that he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination—and had in fact not even mentioned his name on the show since the senator’s appearance on the Sunday show last fall (9/14/14)–Sanders was talked about on the show’s very next episode (5/10/15), coming up in a panel discussion about the Trans Pacific Partnership:

CHUCK TODD, Meet the Press host: You know, Ruth, this is an interesting little fight that’s happening inside the Democratic Party. And Hillary Clinton clearly is nervous about it. Bernie Sanders, who, by the way, you’ve seen is suddenly—with Elizabeth Warren out, he is—he’s topping the, sort of, the second-place vote. You know, he is suddenly getting into the teens. And in many ways, he is more articulate on this issue than Elizabeth Warren is.

RUTH MARCUS, Washington Post: And—and going to push it. She is going to push it; he is going to push it. Many of the Democrats in Congress are going to push it. And the critical question here is where is Hillary Clinton, between President Obama on the one hand and Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders on the other hand? She is going to need to show her hand and start to answer some questions about this.

The reference to Sanders “suddenly getting into the teens” appears to be a reference to polling of Democrats in New Hampshire, where the Vermont senator got 18 percent support in the last Bloomberg poll, and in Iowa, where he was the choice of 15 percent in the latest Quinnipiac poll.

We hope Meet the Press will continue to treat Sanders’ candidacy as a regular part of the political conversation going forward.

Meet the Press‘s Chuck Todd can be reached at Chuck.Todd@NBCUni.com, or via Twitter @ChuckTodd. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.