(Photo Credit: Josh Haner/The New York Times)
Really, you’d have thought Bernie Sanders was a rock star.
Following the Democratic debate Tuesday at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, the Vermont senator, Socialist and Democratic presidential candidate ended up fleeing the spin room chased by a mob of screaming media, flailing microphones and flashing cameras.
At first, Sanders’ quiet entrance into the spin room via a side door went virtually unnoticed. But after a brief on-camera interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Sanders stepped off the stage of news outlet’s press booth into complete insanity. Swarmed by about a hundred reporters and cameramen all scrambling to get in a question, Sanders was quickly swallowed up by a packed crowd of lenses and boom mikes. Some of the more ambitious journalists climbed door frames and stood on trash cans to get a piece of the action, while other less fortunate media just tried not to get trampled.
After taking five or six brief questions and enduring more than a few minutes of chaos -- during which Sanders may or may not have saved MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell from getting flattened under a storm of high heels and tripod legs -- Sanders’ security shoved their way through the mob followed by a tidal wave of humanity. The group fled down a hallway at the Wynn hotel and ducked into a side room, where Sanders’ supporters had previously gathered to watch the debate.
Sanders was then forced to evacuate the floor via a small elevator in a backroom kitchen as hotel and campaign staff slammed the doors on the shrieking crowd behind him.
We have to give Sanders props, though – fellow Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton didn’t even show up to the spin room.
MRC TV was there to capture some of the action: