The mainstream media is shocked by President Donald Trump and the Republican party referring to Democrats as socialist.
During his State of the Union speech, Trump pledged the United States would never become a socialist state. Since then, reporters and political pundits have painted the GOP as pouncing and seizing on Democrats' embrace of socialism.
"It's a label that the president and others have weaponized," MSNBC anchor Ayman Mohyeldin said.
"From the president, from Republicans there have been a lot of focus on socialism," CNN host Ana Cabrera said.
Other anchors like MSNBC's Alex Witt bemoaned the socialist label and how Republicans are using it against Democrats.
It's just not fair of Trump and Republicans. How dare they call Democrats the party of socialist policies when a self-described democratic socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), is one of the leading contenders for president in its primary. After all, it's not as if the party's new majority in the House of Representatives is being led by a member of the Democratic Socialists of America—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.)—whose climate change proposal would require a massive government takeover of the health care, transportation, energy and agriculture industries. The latest NBC poll shows that a vast majority of voters would be uncomfortable with a socialist president, so there is simple no way Democratic voters could view socialism positively.