Appearing on NBC’s Late Night With Seth Meyers Thursday night, aired early Friday morning, Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders objected to the friendly liberal talk show host accurately labeling him as “very left.” The 2020 presidential candidate denied that any of his extreme views were left-wing and even attacked the media for supposedly making it a “bigger deal” than it should be.

Leading off the softball exchange, Meyers noted that “a lot has changed” since Sanders last ran for president and pointed out: “One thing that’s changed is the party has moved more to the left.” Sanders assured Meyers that his ideas, “which at that time were thought to be crazy, and extreme, and radical, are now supported by a considerable majority of the American people.”

Meyers touted the amount of leftist competition Sanders would have this time around:

A lot of those issues obviously distinguished you from the competition last time. One of the successes is you now have convinced a lot of the people that are running against you. Do you ever want to say – because a lot of them are obviously friends or colleagues – do you ever want to say, “Hey, this is kind of my – Medicare-for-all, that’s kind of my thing.” Or are you happy that it is now a consensus?

Sanders replied: “Look, nobody, you know – nobody – no one person can do it alone. So, we need a lot of voices out there.”

In a second segment with the socialist lawmaker following a commercial break, Meyers fretted: “A lot of pundits, some people who are already running, are warning about this idea that if the Democratic Party goes too far left, that will enable a Trump victory because people in the center will flee to him out of fear of the left.” Sanders rejected the notion: “No, I strongly disagree with that.”

Minutes later, Meyers applauded Sanders for labeling Trump a “pathological liar”: “I heard you say, you know, one thing you might do, because obviously you’re running, as you’ve established, [against] a pathological liar, as we try to establish every night. You – I’ve heard the joke you’re gonna bring a lie detector on stage but – at a debate.”

However, he still worried: “But in reality, how do you run against someone who – obviously, you’re very left. You must be aware that Donald Trump would paint you as even farther left than that.”

A frustrated Sanders interrupted:

You know, Seth, here’s the – I never use the word “left.” I don’t – I am. I’m a Democratic socialist, so that’s the way it is. But the issues that we talk about, is it left to say that in this country we should have minimum wage that is a living wage? Is it left to say that everybody should have health care as a right?...Is it left to say that we have to address the crisis of climate change or that we have to deal with criminal justice reform or immigration reform? We have to deal with sexism, racism, and homophobia. I don’t think those are left issues.

The Senator then accused the media of treating him unfairly: “You know, I think sometimes the media makes a bigger deal about it.”

When mildly challenged on his plan for government-run health care during a recent interview on CBS This Morning, Sanders instructed co-host John Dickerson: “I need you in the media to help us explain the truth.”

Clearly Sanders has become so accustomed to media adulation that he has difficulty handling basic questions about his radical ideology, even from press allies like Meyers.

Here are excerpts of the Late Night interview, aired early on the morning of March 1: