By Joe Saunders October 16, 2025 at 5:03pm
If there were an Oscar for overacting, it would be a tie between Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The octogenarian socialist senator from Vermont and the thirtysomething Democrat from New York went into overdrive Wednesday during a CNN town hall meeting under questioning about the government shutdown.
And the meltdown was as fake as a Hollywood screenplay.
Check it out here:
AOC and Bernie have a full-blown melt down when asked if Chuck Schumer should be worried about primary challenge from AOC.
It’s so happening. pic.twitter.com/95HcWo6Naf
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) October 16, 2025
The moment came when moderator Kaitlan Collins brought up Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments that the shutdown is being orchestrated by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer because he fears a future attack on his left flank from AOC in next year’s Senate primary.
And AOC blew her stack — while flubbing her lines.
“This is what we’re talking about!” An irate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded.
“We’re sick of talking about these horse races and we’re sick of leaders who only want to spend their time talking about that, instead of talking about real issues that affect our lives, instead of talking about health care, instead of talking about wages, instead of talking about having air that’s drinkable — I mean, air that’s breathable and water that’s drinkable,” the congresswoman said, according to a CNN transcript.
“And it is, honestly, astonishing to me that the speaker of the House would waste his time on something so inane and silly, instead of actually worrying about his own constituents, who are suffering at the hands of his leadership.”
That, of course, teed up Collins’ next question:
“But are you saying that Senator Schumer should not be worried about a primary challenge from you?” she asked Ocasio-Cortez.
Cue Bernie Sanders, and his characteristic spittle-flecked outrage.
“Let me jump in on this one. Let me — this is — see, Kaitlan …
“You have a country that is falling apart. We have a house — housing crisis, a health care crisis, an education crisis, massive income and wealth inequality, a corrupt campaign finance system.
“And the media says, are you going to run? What are you going to run for?”
And then he was off to the races with the standard progressive script:
“And, here, we will tell you what the real issue is. Let’s see if CNN talks about it,” he said.
The “real issue,” quoth Sanders, is actually a host of issues, all from the leftist playbook: Guaranteed health care, naturally, the minimum wage, homelessness, “oligarchs,” and, of course, “climate change.”
“Let’s talk about that issue, not her own political future,” Sanders said. “She will decide that.”
For all the melodrama, the non-answer to Collins’ question fooled exactly nobody.
She’s sooooo running for Senate!!!
— Susan (@BigStuOU) October 16, 2025
That would a “Yes”
— D David Steele (@DDavidSteele1) October 16, 2025
It’s definitely happening. She can hardly contain herself. She’s giddy.
— Kevin Snyder (@KevinSn50443721) October 16, 2025
Leave aside the fact that, as many social media users pointed out, Sanders’ behavior was a classic example of “mansplaining” — a know-it-all-male taking over for a woman to lecture another woman about the “real issue.”
And leave aside the fact that, as many other social media users pointed out, Sanders was answering his own questions. The United States is the wealthiest country in the world precisely because it hasn’t fallen into the global trap of the kind of socialism he espouses.
Leave aside, even, AOC saying we need air that’s “drinkable.”
Focusing on the purely political question of a potential AOC-Schumer primary fight, this was Bernie Sanders throwing up a smoke screen by chewing up the scenery like Lionel Barrymore on a bad day.
It was two progressive politicians denying the absolute political reality that what’s driving Chuck Schumer’s shutdown is Schumer’s terror. Schumer is playing pure politics here, knowing that signing off on any deal with President Donald Trump is going to mean signing his own political death warrant.
As one social media user put it, harkening back to the greatest dramatist of them all:
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
— Jimmy Jaws (@Jimmy_Jaws) October 16, 2025
Kaitlan Collins knows it. Bernie Sanders knows it.
And Chuck Schumer, wherever he was watching this, knows it better than anyone.
AOC is waiting. Stage left. With a lean and hungry look.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn’t need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American
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