On Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) defended the exorbitant use of private jets to fly around the country during his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

Fox News host Bret Baier broached the topic during an interview with Sanders on “Special Report.”

WATCH: @BretBaier challenges Bernie Sanders on why he spent $221k using private jets during his ‘fighting oligarchy’ tour pic.twitter.com/lMii8D4HC1

— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) May 7, 2025

He first alluded to a POLITICO report on how Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) urged Democrats to stop harping on the “oligarchy” because the term does not resonate beyond coastal institutions.

Then Baier referred to a recent Washington Free Beacon story on Sanders’ main campaign committee, Friends of Bernie Sanders, spending $221,723 chartering private jets during the first quarter of 2025 after and the senator spending millions of dollars on such flights over the years.

“You know, Elissa Slotkin, senator from Michigan, she said you shouldn’t be using ‘oligarch,’ it’s over people’s head. You’ve gotten criticized from other people,” Baier said. “Free Beacon says Bernie Sanders spent $221,000 on private jets [amid the] ‘Fighting Oligarchy” Tour, paid for by Friends of Bernie Sanders. That you’ve spent millions of dollars in campaign funds on private jet travel over the years. How do you push back on both of those things?”

Sanders’ initial inclination was to take a swipe at President Donald Trump.

“When’s the last time you saw Donald Trump during a campaign mode at National Airport?” Sanders asked.

“No, no, no. It doesn’t. But he’s also not fighting the oligarchy,” Baier replied.

“No. You run a campaign and you do three or four or five rallies in a week. The only way you can get around to talk to 30,000 people,” Sanders said. “Think I’m going to be sitting on a waiting line at United, waiting, you know, while 30,000 people are waiting? That’s the only way you can get around. No apologies for that.”

He added: “That’s what campaign travel is about. We’ve done it in the past, we’re going to do it in the future.”

With the reporting on the price tag for the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour flights, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) criticized Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez for their jet-setting ways with a not-so-subtle nod to their climate activism.

“Champagne socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demand Americans surrender their pick-up trucks, air conditioning and meat from the luxe leather seats of their private jets that cost more per hour than most Americans earn in months. Their hypocrisy is staggering,” NRCC spokesperson Ben Petersen told Fox News Digital.

Masked anti-Israel activists, some of them possibly students, occupied Columbia university’s Butler library, where students were trying to prepare for finals, leaving the frustrated students outside.

No one expelled them.

RIGHT NOW AT COLUMBIA: Masked anti-Israel students just broke into the library during finals week.

Columbia Public Safety unsuccessfully attempted to stop them. pic.twitter.com/vBfkQFlwUW

— Eden Yadegar (@edenyadegar) May 7, 2025

WATCH: Anti-Israeli protesters have stormed the Butler Library at Columbia University and are now occupying it.

Make an example of these people.
pic.twitter.com/asiA8YMm3U

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) May 7, 2025

⚠️BREAKING: Pro-Hamas fanatics have taken over Columbia University, terrorizing everyone while masked with keffiyehs, as usual.

Public safety has cleared all other rooms because of these radicals.

Why is this allowed? Why aren't they being arrested?pic.twitter.com/J4GILh5tdP

— Vivid.🇮🇱 (@VividProwess) May 7, 2025

Students who could not enter the library gathered outside.

BREAKING: Over 100 students have OCCUPIED Columbia University Butler Library, stating "THE BASEL AL-ARAJ POPULAR UNIVERSITY has just launched, reclaiming BUTLER LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE".

Students are gathered outside of the library unable to go in.

Video by @a_lkoakes… pic.twitter.com/pwQOeyGs34

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 7, 2025

Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the campus coalition of leftists, issued a video in which they stated, “BREAKING: THE BASEL AL-ARAJ POPULAR UNIVERSITY HAS JUST LAUNCHED, RECLAIMING BUTLER LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE … Over 100 people have just flooded Columia University for Palestine.”

The group issued a list of demands, including, “Full financial divestment from zionist occupation, apartheid and genocide. Academic boycott of all complicit institutions, including the cancellation of the Tel Aviv Global center. Cops and ICE off our campus. … Amnesty for all students, staff, faculty and workers targeted by Columbia University’s discipline.”

Last year the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition publicly acknowledged a deeper truth: they are fighting to “eradicate” Western civilization. They joined with the university’s Bengali Student Association to post a statement on Instagram, as Campus Reform reported.

“We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization,” they stated. “We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one—we are fighting for nothing less than the liberation of all people. We reject every genocidal, eugenicist regime that seeks to undermine the personhood of the colonized.”

”As the fascism ingrained in the American consciousness becomes ever more explicit and irrefutable, we seek community and instruction from militants in the Global South, who have been on the frontlines in the fight against tyranny and domination which undergird the imperialist world order,” they continued.

Columbia University also administers the Pulitzer prizes, awards that recognize excellence in American journalism, arts, and letters, named after newspaper Joseph Pulitzer, who was Jewish.

This year, the Pulitzer committee awarded a Pulitzer to Palestinian Mosab Abu Toha, who denied that Israelis taken and kept by Hamas in the October 7, 2023 massacre of over 1200 Israelis were hostages. Toha claimed that an Israeli civilian who was shot twice and abducted from her home was not a hostage; referred to another young woman abducted by Hamas as a “hostage,”: with quote marks around the word, and declared Israeli soldiers celebrating Hanukkah was “what true antisemitism looks like,”

Meet Pulitzer Prize winner Mosab Abu Toha. He justifies the kidnapping of Israelis on Oct. 7.

We aren't going to congratulate him for his prize. Instead, we're going to ask @PulitzerPrizes whether they bothered to check his social media.

Because we did, and it's not pretty. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/qQAMQGi0IK

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 7, 2025

Hamas held Agam Berger hostage with none of the rights due to a prisoner who has gone through a legal process.

But that doesn't matter to Mosab Abu Toha. Because no Israeli could be a hostage in his eyes. pic.twitter.com/w2tSLNrfO9

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 7, 2025

According to Mosab Abu Toha, Israeli "terror soldiers" celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah is "what true antisemitism looks like." 🤨

Maybe he should ask Hamas what true antisemitism is. pic.twitter.com/r5d3oOeD3Z

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 7, 2025