Establishment Democrats are panicking about the rise of democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the slide of former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 race, Fox News contributor Guy Benson said Thursday.

Earlier in the day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was asked to weigh in on the state of the party following Sanders' New Hampshire primary victory and insisted that party leaders are "calm, cool and collected," adding that when members disagree about the best candidates, "that’s politics. It’s a messy business.”

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"Calm, cool and collected so much so that she is ripping up pages of the State of the Union address?" Benson asked Thursday on "The Story"

"Look, I think that if she had her way, she would absolutely want to help nudge voters away from Bernie Sanders," he added.

On Wednesday, Sanders called former Clinton adviser James Carville a “political hack” after he said it would be the “end of days” for Democrats if Sanders became the nominee.

"I think Pelosi is looking at this situation and saying, 'Maybe it’s not useful for me to weigh in on this,"' Benson told substitute host Ed Henry. "'Let people decide what they’re going to do. Don’t put my thumb on the scale' ... but some of her members, some of those moderate members who are majority makers, they are blabbing to reporters all over this town saying, 'We cannot have Bernie at the top of the ticket or I am totally cooked.'"

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Benson added that Pelosi "definitely knows that but she recognizes that the establishment going too hard against a guy like Bernie could actually strengthen him," calling it the "Trump effect."