Ah, CNN, what a titan of media objectivity you are! All you want to do is bring us the news as it happens!
As the only other candidate running for president as a Democrat in 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) cannot make it through an interview without being grilled about Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, Sanders visited CNN to discuss his plan to make public universities tuition-free, but Wolf Blitzer mostly seemed interested in getting his reaction to Clinton’s first Q&A session with the press in more than four weeks.
Asked by Blitzer to react to Clinton’s comments on her own wealth, the candidate said that income inequality is “an issue I’ve been talking about many years and what we need to do is be specific about what we’re going to do.” When he said that the vast majority of new income is going to the top one-tenth of the 1%, Blitzer wanted to know if that was a jab at the Clintons.
Sanders is very good at steering his answers to what he wants to talk about and not feeding the media the "gotcha" moments it craves. But he had a heckuva time with blockhead Wolf Blitzer, who seemed interested only in smearing Hillary Clinton and getting Sanders to help him at it.
Blitzer seemed totally uninterested in Sanders talking about his newly introduced legislation to make public colleges and universities tuition-free for students and paying for it by taxing Wall Street speculation:
Blitzer: “Where’s the money going to come from?” Blitzer wondered.
Sanders: “A tax on Wall Street speculation.”
Blitzer: “What does that mean, a tax on Wall Street speculation?”
Sanders: “What we’re going to impose is what exists in dozens of countries around the world, a very modest tax on the transference of large amounts of stock.”
Blitzer: “Is that going to pay for tuition?”
Sanders: “More than that… The estimate is it could bring in as much as $300 billion a year.”
Blitzer: “Do you think Republicans are going to go along with this?”
Sanders: “Of course they’re not.”
Blitzer: “If they’re not going to go along with it, then it’s not going to become the law.”
Sanders: “I don’t think it’s going to be passed tomorrow… The American people will go along with it.”
Blitzer: “Is Hillary Clinton committed to this cause as are you?”
Sanders: “Wolf, you have to ask Hillary. I don’t work for her. I don’t know.”
Blitzer: “So you want to raise taxes?”
Sanders: “On the very wealthiest in this country? Absolutely.”
Just to add to the journalistic disgrace of this interview, Mediate notes:
It is notable that the entire time Sanders discussed his college plan, the chyron “Clinton Questioned About Income Inequality” remained on the screen.