Sen. Cory Booker found himself in an uncomfortable spot on ABC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday when host Kristen Welker asked him a simple question: Are Democrats drawing a firm enough line between themselves and socialism? His answer told the audience more than he probably intended.
“Again, this is really what the Republicans want to do, focus on a few fringe people,” Booker said, before pivoting to an attack on Trump’s tariff and tax policies. He never answered the question. He never condemned socialism. And he never addressed the candidate at the center of the exchange, Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Senate Democratic nominee who has been endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The word that mattered was “fringe.” Booker, a senior Senate Democrat, appeared to concede on national television that his party has a far-left problem, and then refused to do anything about it.
Welker set the table clearly. She cited polling showing that socialism is viewed “even more negatively than the ‘MAGA movement'” and noted that President Trump has been working to paint Democrats as socialists. She pointed to El-Sayed’s Michigan Senate race as ground zero for that fight.
Welker asked Booker directly:
“Senator, you see there in our polls that socialism is viewed even more negatively than the ‘MAGA movement.’ President Trump is trying to paint progressives, and frankly all Democrats, as socialists, and we’re seeing one of the big battles play out for progressivism in Michigan right now with Abdul El-Sayed… do you think Democrats are drawing a firm enough line between themselves and socialism?”
Booker’s response was a textbook deflection. Rather than address El-Sayed, socialism, or whether Democrats should distance themselves from far-left ideology, he launched into a policy wish list.
“I serve in the United States Senate and I could go through my colleagues, left and right. What we want right now is to end these reckless tariffs and drive down prices, to end this war to drive down prices, to give a tax plan for this country that puts more money in working peoples’ pockets and ends the giveaways to the wealthiest of Americans.”
That’s a stump speech. It’s not an answer. And the dodge was not lost on observers.
The backdrop to Booker’s evasion makes it worse. Just days before the interview, El-Sayed traveled to Washington, D.C., and met with Senate Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The Michigan nominee described the sit-down in friendly terms.
“We had a warm meeting, good conversation, and I know that we left that conversation committed to doing what we need to do to take on different perspectives,” El-Sayed said. He added that “the things that bring us together are so much bigger than any of the disagreements that we have.”
El-Sayed, who insists he is not a socialist despite the endorsements from Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, framed the meeting as a show of unity. “We’re united in the fact that we have to win Michigan,” he said. “Whatever our difference is, our agreement on the importance of winning Michigan to take back the Senate majority [is] overwhelming.”
So the party’s Senate leadership rolled out the welcome mat for a candidate backed by self-described democratic socialists, and then, days later, the party’s most visible senator on Sunday television couldn’t bring himself to say the word “socialism”, let alone reject it. The pattern is familiar. Democratic voters have increasingly chosen socialist-backed candidates over establishment figures, and party leaders keep looking the other way.
Booker’s use of “fringe” is the most revealing part of the exchange. It suggests he knows these candidates are a political liability. Polls back him up, socialism is deeply unpopular with the broader electorate. Yet El-Sayed won his party’s nomination. He got the Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez endorsements. He got a meeting with Schumer. He got a “warm” reception from Senate Democrats in Washington.
That’s not how parties treat fringe figures. That’s how they treat candidates they plan to support.
The gap between Booker’s language and his party’s actions is the real story. He called them “fringe” to a national audience, then offered no evidence that Democrats intend to marginalize them. No condemnation. No policy distinction. No daylight whatsoever between the party mainstream and the candidates he just labeled as outliers.
It’s a familiar move from Democratic leadership, acknowledge the political problem in the vaguest possible terms, then change the subject before anyone notices you haven’t actually done anything about it. Ocasio-Cortez herself has tried to wave away progressive baggage as ancient history, only to face pushback from conservatives who remember what was said and done.
The reaction on social media was swift. Katie Zacharia, a communications adviser for Trump Media & Technology Group, offered a pointed assessment.
“A day late and a dollar short. Senator Booker is trying to disassociate as the ‘Big Tent’ burns.”
Zacharia added that Booker should have condemned socialism outright and said the “Dem party [is] in disarray.”
Radio host Jason Rantz responded to Booker’s comments with a single word: “Oops.” Author Carl Paulus speculated about what Democratic leaders are seeing in their own data. “I really wonder what the internals they showed those senators in DC said,” Paulus posted on X.
That’s a fair question. If the party’s internal polling on socialism looks anything like the public numbers Welker cited, it would explain both Booker’s discomfort and his refusal to engage. He knows the label is toxic. He also knows a significant wing of his caucus embraces it.
Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to both Booker’s office and the El-Sayed campaign for comment but did not receive responses at the time of publication. The silence is consistent with the broader strategy: say as little as possible and hope the issue fades.
But the issue isn’t fading. El-Sayed appeared at the Michigan Democratic Party’s nominating convention in Lansing on August 29, 2026. He has a Senate race to run. And every day that Democratic leaders refuse to draw a clear line on socialism, the Republican argument drafts itself.
The dynamic mirrors broader fractures within the party. Democrats have repeatedly miscalculated their political positioning heading into midterm cycles, overestimating the appeal of their left flank and underestimating voter resistance to big-government ideology.
What makes Booker’s moment distinctive is the accidental honesty. He didn’t mean to call the far left “fringe.” Or if he did, he certainly didn’t mean to follow it up by refusing to condemn the ideology that makes them fringe. The result was a public admission that the Democratic Party knows it has a socialism problem, and a simultaneous demonstration that it has no intention of solving it.
Schumer met with El-Sayed. Booker dodged the question. Neither office responded to press inquiries. The party apparatus is treating a candidate endorsed by avowed democratic socialists as a valued member of the team while telling the cameras he’s on the fringe. It’s the kind of political miscalculation that invites instant mockery, and earns it.
There are open questions that deserve answers. Which other Senate Democrats sat in that room with El-Sayed? What did Schumer say to him? And if these candidates are truly “fringe,” why is the party’s leadership flying them to Washington for strategy sessions?
Voters can see the contradiction, even if Booker can’t bring himself to name it. You don’t get to call someone fringe on Sunday and fund-raise with them on Monday. At some point, a party has to decide what it actually believes, or the voters will decide for it.
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