WATCH: CNN’s Chris Wallace Bombards Bernie Sanders With Questions About Biden’s Age

CNN anchor Chris Wallace bombarded Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders about President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, including several extended riffs on politicians’ age.

Wallace’s HBO Max/CNN series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace returned this week with episodes featuring Wallace and comedy legend Carol Burnett.

In an extensive interview with Senator Sanders, Wallace asked about Biden’s 2024 campaign, and when Sanders delivered a lengthy defense of Biden Wallace hit him with several pointed arguments about the president’s age:

WALLACE: President Biden announced this week that he is running for re-election, you have already endorsed him. Why is it that not a single leading Democrat is willing to contest that nomination in the primaries? Why do you think that is?

SANDERS: I suspect that it has to do with a fear of the growth of right-wing extremism in this country, and that is the Republican Party over the last number of years, accelerated by Trumpism, has not become not a conservative party but a right-wing extremist party. And this is a part that — not all, by any means, but you have many of the leaders who actually don’t believe in democracy anymore. You have many Republicans maintaining the lie that Trump actually won the election. You have Republicans working overtime to deny low-income people, people of color, young people the right to vote, people defended the insurrection in January 6th.

So, the first answer to your question, Chris, is that I think there’s a great fear in this country about attacks on democracy. We want to maintain democracy.

WALLACE: So, you are saying it’s more fear of Donald Trump and MAGA than it is enthusiasm for Joe Biden?

SANDERS: Well, I think that’s half of it. But the other half is a recognition, I think, that while Biden has not done everything I would like to have seen done, let’s talk about what he has accomplished, which is no small thing.

We forget — as Americans, we have short memory spans. We passed the American rescue plan, which as you’ll recall, made sure every working family in the country had $1,400 for husband, wife and kids. We got money to hospitals. We extended unemployment benefits. Bottom line is that colossal piece of legislation, which I helped work on, helped pull this country out of the economic downturn faster than I think in any time in American history when we faced similar economic crises.

That’s a big deal.

WALLACE: You say that Joe Biden is a more progressive president than he was a U.S. senator, and you talk some credit along with other progressives in pushing him more to the left. What is it that you think he has done that shows him being more progressive than he was as a senator? Where did he move?

SANDERS: Well, first of all, I think what Biden — it’s not that I pushed him or others pushed him. He ran for president. And he saw millions of people saying, hey, you know what, we want structural changes in this country. We are tired are half measures. The country is in trouble. Let’s have the courage to take on big money. He saw that. His staff saw that and said, okay.

So, the ARP program, to my mind, the American rescue plan, was enormously significant. We passed the largest infrastructure bill in modern American history. We put a whole lot of people to work doing meaningful, important work. We finally, in a small way in the Inflation Reduction Act, made — we got to do more taking on the pharmaceutical industry and beginning to lower prescription drug costs. So, those are not small things.

WALLACE: But, Senator, as Joe Biden gears up for 2024, he has done a number of things that seem to move back towards the center or even to the right. He’s approved a massive drilling program in Alaska. He is cracking down on immigration. He opposes criminal justice reform in Washington, D.C. What’s going on?

SANDERS: Well, I don’t know what’s going on. I think I truly disagree with him in terms of that project in Alaska, absolutely. You cannot say, as he does, that climate change is the existential threat to this planet, which it is, and then approve massive oil exploration.

WALLACE: So, is he triangulating? Do you think he’s making a move —

SANDERS: I don’t want to — he has his reason. I don’t know why. What I can tell you is I strongly oppose that.

WALLACE: Let me bring you on to another subject, which is age. The president is 80. You are 81. And according to the polls, most Democrats do not want to see him run again and most of them, it’s because of the issue of age. Is that a legitimate concern given the fact the president would be 86 years old at the end of a second term?

SANDERS: Obviously, I have a conflict of interest here. I think we should only elect old people. Look, I think it totally depends on the individual. You know, I’m sure you know, people in their 80s and 90s, who are sharp as a tack and people who are 50, maybe not so much, it depends on the individual. Is age a factor? Yes. Is it the only factor? Obviously not.

WALLACE: But you agree it’s a factor?

SANDERS: It’s factor but it depends on the individual. Of course, it’s a factor.

WALLACE: But you often don’t know about the individual. In other words, somebody is 80 years old, he’s doing fine, maybe not so great at 82 or 86.

SANDERS: That’s a fair point.

Wallace went on to devote several more chunks of the episode to the issue of age, prompting Sanders to crack wise about the focus.

Watch above via Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace.