Rick Santorum Calls Out DNC For Refusing to Give Fox News a Dem Primary Debate: ‘What Are They Afraid Of?’

Former Senator Rick Santorum responded to the news that the DNC plans to block Fox News from holding a primary debate by asking, “what are they afraid of?”

Santorum’s comment came during a panel discussion on CNN on Wednesday night.

Political analyst and USA Today columnist Kirsten Powers started off by noting Fox News doesn’t actually have much of a track record hosting debates anyhow.

“I was trying to even remember the last time Fox News hosted a Democratic Debate,” she said. “I really can’t even remember.”

Then after noting that Fox News has become intertwined with President Donald Trump these days, she stressed good journalists still remain who could capably hold debates.

“There are good journalists there, and I think that they could negotiate to have a debate with a Chris Wallace, for example, a Martha MacCallum, a Bret Baier, and I think they would be smart to do it, frankly,” Powers continued on. “I think that they would have access to a large audience and, you know, that’s what I would do if I were them. But they have for a long time, you know, not wanted to do anything with Fox News.”

Host Anderson Cooper then asked Santorum this: “It sounds like the kind of thing that pleases, you know, the liberal part, or the left, you know, far left part of the Democratic Party, and sort of makes them feel good, but just in terms of, you know, trying to sway voters who could be reached, it seems shortsighted, no?”

“What are they afraid of?” Santorum replied. “I mean, as Kirsten mentioned, there’s legit journalists over there. You mentioned it, too. There’s no question that there is an opinion side to Fox and you’re right…but there’s also a journalist side.”

Santorum continued on: “And those are the folks that in my presidential debates those were the people who asked the questions and let me assure you they were really tough questions, they were as tough as the ones I got on CNN.”

Early Wednesday evening, Trump also reacted to the news that the DNC does not plan to allow Fox News to host with a bit of Twitter bluster.

“Democrats just blocked @FoxNews from holding a debate,” Trump wrote. “Good, then I think I’ll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election debates!”