Bernie Sanders didn’t pull any punches when he put the blame squarely on the media for propping up Republicans while calling the GOP a joke during his interview with Rachel Maddow.

Transcript via MSNBC:

SANDERS: Well, uh, first of all, I don’t necessarily take at value — face value what they say. I think at the end of the day, they probably will come together.

But the other point, I think the more — the deeper point, Rachel, is the Republican Party today has moved very, very far to the right. Uh, they are way out of touch with where the American people are.

And I think if we had a media in this country that was really prepared to look at what the Republicans actually stood for rather than quoting every absurd remark of Donald Trump, talking about Republican Party, talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the top two tenths of 1 percent, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, a party which with few exceptions, doesn’t even acknowledge the reality of climate change, let alone do anything about it, a party which is not prepared to stand with women in the fight for pay equity, a party that is not prepared to do anything about a broken criminal justice system or a corrupt campaign finance system, I think, to be honest with you — and I just don’t, you know, say this rhetorically, this is a fringe party. It is a fringe party. Maybe they get 5, 10 percent of the vote.

What you really need in this country is a progressive party standing with the working class and the middle class of this country. And yes, a conservative party that, you know, has, you know, is more fiscally conservative. That is where we should be as a country.

But the Republican Party today now is a joke, maintained by a media which really does not force them to discuss their issues.

So that — that’s my two cents on that.