After Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) completed his concession speech and dropped out of the Democratic primary, some CNN anchors appeared to take issue with him apparently leaving out praise for the presumptive nominee Joe Biden.
Sanders, who dropped out of the race late Wednesday morning, published a live video to address his supporters. During the speech, he explained why he was dropping out and promised to continue to fight for the values he laid out in his campaign.
But CNN anchors John King and Dana Bash did not seem to think he struck the right tone.
“He didn’t say anything nice about Joe Biden,” King said.
“He did not say he had spoken to him. He did not say he would work with him. He said it was imperative to beat President Trump. But there was no big embrace of Joe Biden. He said nicer things about Joe Biden back during some of the Democratic debates than he said in saying goodbye.”
“It was really noteworthy that that was not part of his message at all,” Bash responded.
CNN is now handwringing over Bernie not sufficiently kissing Biden's ass in Bernie's concession speech. pic.twitter.com/8CWxO137vh
— jordan (@JordanUhl) April 8, 2020
As The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald pointed out on Twitter, Sanders actually did offer some praise to Biden.
“Today I congratulate Joe Biden, a very decent man, who I will work with to move our progressive ideas forward,” Sanders said.
Others criticized the CNN commentary as well.
“You can never win,” Rob Rousseau, a writer and Sanders supporter, tweeted. “Even if you do things their way it doesn’t matter.”
Reason’s Robby Soave tweeted, “Every word spoken in this CNN video was wrong.”
Later, CNN’s King tweeted, “Harpoons deserved and accepted, and my apologies to Senator Sanders.” He then sought to clarify.
Harpoons deserved and accepted, and my apologies to Senator Sanders. We had some technical issues and I did not hear the "I will work with" — The error was mine and the blame lies with me not anyone else in the conversation.
— John King (@JohnKingCNN) April 8, 2020
After the announcement, Biden made an attempt to reach out to Sanders’ supporters by publishing a lengthy post on Medium where he praised Sanders and the movement he has created.
“Bernie has put his heart and soul into not only running for President but for the causes and issues he has been dedicated to his whole life,” Biden wrote. “He hasn’t just run a political campaign; he’s created a movement. And make no mistake about it, I believe it’s a movement that is as powerful today as it was yesterday. That’s a good thing for our nation and our future.”