On February 25^th, Fox & Friends, a weekday morning news show hosted by Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade, discussed the then-upcoming Democratic debate in South Carolina. Joined by guest appearance Miranda Devine, a New York Post columnist, they considered which candidates would be the most attacked in the debate. 

The hosts addressed that Bernie Sanders would be the most likely candidate targeted, particularly in light of his recent interview with Anderson Cooper on the CBS News program 60 Minutes. In the interview, Sanders controversially praised programs established by the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, who governed a callous communist regime in the Republic of Cuba for over a decade. This served as a reminder of Sanders’ previous praise of Daniel Ortega’s Nicaraguan government and his past engagement with the Soviet Union. 

“If you can’t tell [Sanders] that your fanship of the Soviet Union, Fidel Castro, of Daniel Ortega, is abhorrent to those who lost their lives,” Kilmeade remarked, “it’s going to be a repellent for anybody that has a sense that they want to be free and have a degree of liberty in their life.”

Although it is uncertain how this controversy will affect support for Sanders, he is currently in the lead at 45 delegates, beating Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. During the talk show, Devine criticized Sanders for “hijacking” the Democratic party and the party’s nomination of him despite his far-left policies. “It shows you just how far they have lost their way.” Devine explained, “This is nothing like when Donald Trump was nominee for the Republicans, because his policies economically are not that much different from the Republican Party; whereas with Bernie Sanders, he is way off to the left, he’s dragging, he’s hijacking that party.”

The hosts and Devine mutually agreed that both Sanders and Donald Trump would be heavily under the firing line, and as a result, Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg would be targeted less. “The one that will probably escape tonight is Mike Bloomberg,” Kilmeade proposed, “because there’s a desperation to stop Bernie, while Bloomberg will probably sit back and attack but will not be as attacked as much, I would imagine.” 

Miranda Devine further went on to remark that Elizabeth Warren is now “irrelevant” in the presidential election, likely referring to Warren’s recent underperformance where she only placed third in the Iowa caucuses and fourth in New Hampshire

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