Hill.TV host Saagar Enjeti ripped CNN over its handling of the final Democratic presidential debate before the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday night.
“CNN was certainly at it again last night with their outrageous questioning of Sen. Bernie Sanders,” Enjeti said Wednesday. “It is probably the worst instance of media malpractice that we’ve seen in a presidential debate.”
Enjeti joined other critics online in criticizing the way one of the network’s moderators framed a question over a recent feud between Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Both senators this week have engaged in a war of words over a CNN report, claiming that Sanders had said that a woman could not win the presidential election during a 2018 meeting with Warren. While Warren corroborated CNN’s account of the comments, Sanders refuted the claim.
CNN moderator Abby Phillip sparked further criticism during the debate on Tuesday night, when she asked Warren what she thought when Sanders reportedly told her that a woman could not win the presidency, just moments after Sanders denied the claim.
“Sen. Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?” Phillip asked Warren.
Warren responded by saying that she was “not here to try to fight with Bernie,” and went on to use the issue to confront the idea of electability, noting that the women on the debate stage were the only ones to have never lost an election they’ve run in.
“That is blatant political propaganda and it’s not really surprising,” Enjeti said of the debate.
On Wednesday, the hashtag “#CNNisGarbage” started trending on Twitter, with supporters claiming that the network treated the Vermont senator unfairly.
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