Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was not happy to be asked during an ABC News interview about whether he thinks Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) should join him in the Senate, walking off the set in a huff and having to be talked into coming back to finish it.

Sanders was in the middle of praising AOC, with whom he has recently held very popular rallies that drew tens of thousands, when Jonathan Karl asked him, “Would you like to see her join you in the Senate?”

Apparently, this was an offensive question, because Sanders jumped up out of his seat and said, “Right now we have, as I said, just a whole lot of people in the Congress. OK, Jonathan, thanks."

When Karl tried to get him to stay, Sanders said, “No, you wanna do nonsense. Do nonsense. I don’t want to talk about inside-the-Beltway stuff. I got 32,000 people [at my rallies].”

"Tired"

Sanders, who is 83, admitted he was "tired" after a long political career during which he did not manage to get elected president, but did manage to move the country left by giving up his electoral votes to Joe Biden in 2020 in exchange for some input into the agenda.

Sanders is already older than everyone else in the Senate except for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who is 91. Having just been re-elected, he will be 89 before he has to run again, if he makes it that long.

Prior to the dustup, Sanders said of Ocasio-Cortez, “When I first came to the Congress in the House, I helped form the Progressive Caucus. We had five people in it at that time. Now they have close to 100."

“You got a whole lot of good people. Alexandria is extraordinary. I am so impressed by her work in Congress and her — just, she inspires young people all over the country.”

Is he afraid?

But maybe some of Sanders's ire comes from a fear of being eclipsed by the younger AOC before he's ready to leave the spotlight.

She's only been a congresswoman for less than a full Senate term, and she doesn't seem to "know her place" as a young person still at the beginning of her career, he may be thinking.

On the other hand, maybe Sanders is just getting cranky in his old age like another elderly Democrat politician we know (Joe Biden).

He's got to be a little bit bitter knowing how close he got to getting the Democrat nomination twice, only to be screwed over by the more moderate forces in the party.

Whether it was his plan or not, his stunt got him more attention than he's had in a while, other than the rallies where he's preaching to the choir of like-minded leftists.

I guess you don't need to make sense after turning 80 if you're a Democrat being interviewed by anyone in the leftist media.