Sen. Bernie Sanders abruptly ended his sit-down interview with ABC News, leaving This Week host Jonathan Karl visibly stunned when he declined to answer whether Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should run for the Senate.
The Vermont independent dismissed the line of questioning as “nonsense” after Karl pressed him on whether AOC should challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer following his vote in favor of the Republican-led budget to avoid a government shutdown.
After attempting to shut down the line of questioning, the fiery senator abruptly stood up and stormed out of the interview—an exchange captured on camera as Karl pleaded with Sanders not to end it prematurely.
Off-camera, Sanders dismissed the topic as “inside the Beltway stuff” and argued that there were more important issues to focus on than speculation about Democratic Party leadership.
Eventually, the senator relented, giving Karl the chance to ask one final question—this time about Sanders’ own political future, steering clear of anything related to AOC.
Sanders, 83, ruled out the possibility of launching another presidential bid, candidly acknowledging that he’s “old and tired.”
During the interview, Sanders did point a finger at Schumer for allowing last week’s continuing resolution to pass. However, he stopped short of endorsing calls for a primary challenge against the Senate Majority Leader.
WATCH:
🔥 WATCH: “Nonsense!” Senator Bernie Sanders gets offended when ABC host Jonathan Karl asks if he wants to see AOC run for the Senate in New York and walks off from interview, then Karl convinces him to stay for one more question.
Karl: “Would you like to see AOC joining the… pic.twitter.com/jJoIHbEAVy
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) March 23, 2025
“You said that the passage of this bill, the continuing resolution, was a, ‘absolute failure of Democratic leadership.’ Who are you talking about?” Karl asked.
“Well, Schumer is the leader of the party, and it should not have happened, period. No question about it,” Sanders said, though failure of the spending bill’s passage would have led to a government shutdown — something he and most other Democrats in the past have claimed would “devastate” the country.
“But, you know, when we talk about Democratic leadership, we’re talking about the Democratic Party in general, you know,” he added. “It’s not just Chuck Schumer. It is – you’ve got a Democratic Party in general that is dominated by billionaires, just as the Republican Party is.’
Sanders, meanwhile, is reportedly worth north of $3 million.
Meanwhile, other Democrats, including AOC, have been far more critical of Schumer.
Some are calling for him to step down from his leadership role and are rallying behind the idea of a more progressive Democrat mounting a primary challenge—though Schumer isn’t up for reelection until 2028.
But a defiant Schumer firmly rejected calls to step down as the chamber’s top Democrat, pushing back against criticism from House Democrats and progressive advocates upset over his support for the Republican-backed funding bill earlier this month that kept the government funded and operating.
“Look, I’m not stepping down,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a taped interview that aired Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
Schumer told host Kristen Welker he knew there “would be a lot of controversy” when he voted to prevent a government shutdown. But he argued that while the GOP’s six-month bill was “certainly bad,” a shutdown “would be 15 or 20 times worse.”
“Under a shutdown, the executive branch has sole power to determine what is ‘essential.’ And they can determine without any court supervision. The courts have ruled it’s solely up to the executive what to shut down,” he said, claiming that the Trump administration “would eviscerate the federal government.”
“On Day 2, they could say, ‘Oh, SNAP? Feeding hungry children? Not essential.’ On Day 4, ‘Mass transit? All transit? Aid to the states? Not essential. We’re cutting it.’ On Day 6, ‘Medicaid? We’ll cut that by 20%, 30%, 50%, 80%. We’ll go after Social Security. We’ll go after the veterans.’ Their goal is to just eviscerate the federal government so they can give more taxes, and their tax cuts … to their billionaire class over there,” he said.
Trump and Republicans have repeatedly stated that they do not want to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, only that they seek to identify and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. Also, Trump and the GOP have never said they will “go after” veterans to cut their benefits.
“Sometimes, when you’re a leader, you have to do things to avoid a real danger that might come down the curve. And I did it out of pure conviction as to what a leader should do and what the right thing for America and my party was. People disagree,” Schumer continued.
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