Reuters

• A host of high-profile commentators and cable news anchors began lashing out at Sen. Bernie Sanders as preliminary results from the Nevada caucus showed him winning. 

• MSNBC host Chris Matthews on Saturday compared Sanders’ win in Nevada to Nazi Germany gaining control of France during World War II.

• James Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist who advised Sen. Michael Bennet’s failed 2020 bid, suggested Sanders’ success can be chalked up to a reported Russian interference campaign. 

• MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, a former press secretary for President George W. Bush, praised Carville’s comments and further claimed Sanders “hasn’t been vetted” by the media or his opponents. 

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As results in the Nevada caucus showed Sen. Bernie Sanders with a big lead on Saturday afternoon, a host of high-profile commentators and cable news anchors began lashing out at the candidate. 

MSNBC host Chris Matthews on Saturday compared Sanders’ win in Nevada to Nazi Germany gaining control of France during World War II. Matthews described the Vermont lawmaker’s expected win — and step towards the party’s nomination — as something of a catastrophe for the Democratic Party. 

Matthews even argued moderate Democrats may rather see President Donald Trump win a second term than vote for Sanders. 

“Do they want Bernie Sanders to take over the Democratic Party in perpetuity?” Matthews asked his panel in Las Vegas. “Maybe they’d rather wait four years and put in the Democrat that they like.”

James Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist who advised Sen. Michael Bennet’s failed 2020 bid, argued that Sanders’ success thus far in the primary is attributable to Russian’s reported interference campaign.

Carville said he doesn’t think the Sanders campaign is colluding with Russia in any way, but then went on to argue that Sanders’ 2016 campaign adviser Tad Devine was “Paul Manafort’s sidekick,” appearing to suggest Sanders’ campaign has been corrupted by Russian influence. 

“This thing is going very well for Vladimir Putin right now,” Carville said. 

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, a former press secretary for President George W. Bush, praised Carville’s comments and further claimed that Sanders “hasn’t been vetted by either the press or the other candidates.” Another MSNBC host, Joy Reid, described Sanders’ supporters as “angry” and argued, “Democrats need to sober up and figure out what the hell they’re going to do” about Sanders’ rise. 

On CNN, Van Jones, a regular contributor who served in President Barack Obama’s administration, joked that the Democratic establishment should toss marbles or a banana peel under Sanders to slow his rise. 

The Sanders campaign has long argued that much of cable news and the “mainstream” media is biased against him and offers his more moderate Democratic opponents significantly more favorable coverage. And many Sanders supporters took issue with the cable punditry on Saturday. 

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