On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” New York Times National Correspondent Jeremy Peters stated that there have been many interviews “where candidates who represent the Democratic Socialists of America have really struggled to articulate how they don’t subscribe to Communism, whether or not they really believe in Marxism, and basic facts about how their ideology would help them govern the United States out of this affordability crisis.”

Host Bill Maher began by saying that the “rot in higher education…started long ago, when they stopped teaching people things, because they became indoctrination centers. Two stories from this week, I think, will show you that this has now infected our political discourse: Megan Romer, she is the co-chair of the DSA. She was on David Remnick’s podcast, and she talked about taxing the hell out of them, and he said, what do you mean by that? And she said, well, I don’t really have a solid, and then just dribbled off. And he said, but shouldn’t you? Shouldn’t you be more specific about what taxing the hell means? They don’t know anything, okay. Then Lindsey Graham’s sister who was running — and is now running in South Carolina, she was asked about Taiwan, and she said, I’m not that informed on social — on national security. Well, you’re running for the Senate. That’s not an answer that is acceptable.”

CNN host and Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash then said, “I will say that interview that David Remnick did with the DSA chair, it’s something that everybody should watch, as an — hopefully, an antidote to what you just said. This isn’t — this is, like, real life. This isn’t just a string of slogans put together, it’s actual policy that, when you get to a place where you’re running for elected office, or if you actually are successful in elected office, you’ve got to know stuff.”

Peters then stated, “Yeah. And, by the way, there’s been a slew of interviews just like this, where candidates who represent the Democratic Socialists of America have really struggled to articulate how they don’t subscribe to Communism, whether or not they really believe in Marxism, and basic facts about how their ideology would help them govern the United States out of this affordability crisis. Look, a lot of these people are really talented politically. I think Mamdani is a generational political talent. He’s out of the Democratic Socialists of America. El-Sayed in Michigan is also very talented. He’s not a Democratic Socialist, although they do claim him as one of their own. But, by and large, a lot of these candidates come out of the activist wing of the party. They’re very academic, they’re very into reading Karl Marx and left-wing theory. And we’ve seen, time and time again, that a lot of them just don’t withstand the scrutiny.”

Earlier, Peters said that “some of them are not quite ready for primetime, let’s be clear, but a lot of them have really done a good job of selling themselves to the public as quite reasonable, mainstream politicians.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett