CNBC anchor Joe Kernen on Tuesday tore into the prospect of a socialist president, and knocked young people who he said had a warped view of Bernie Sanders.
Kernen’s comments came in response to a report by political correspondent John Harwood on the democratic presidential race. In his report, Harwood featured a poll that had Sanders losing to Clinton by 14 percentage points.
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“I’m telling you, the country is not going to elect a socialist!” Kernen said on the May 17, 2016, episode of Squawk Box. Kernen also criticized young people for having an “idyllic viewpoint.”
Kernen continued, “It’s like this you know sort of like an idyllic viewpoint that young people have: This is our savior. But in reality it would never happen. It would never happen where the country would elect a socialist.”
According to Kernen, Clinton would be a better nominee than Sanders and said “I don’t need a poll to know” that.
After Harwood said other people in politics don’t agree, Kernen replied that those who didn’t should go to Venezuela.
“They should go take a vacation in Venezuela, and try and you know, go get some healthcare or something," Kernen said.
Venezuela, a socialist country, recently declared an economic state of emergency, and its health care system is in crisis. In a New York Times report on terrible conditions in the country’s “failing hospitals,” one Venezuelan surgeon said that “the death of a baby is our daily bread.”
