On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” New York Times National Correspondent Jeremy Peters said that many Democratic Socialist candidates “want to take out the entire constitutional system that the Democratic Party is allowed to participate and govern in.” And are fans of Communism.

Peters said, “[T]hey’re not running to be members of the Democratic Party, they’re running — many of them, anyway —  as Democratic Socialists. It’s a totally different political organization. And, in fact, they want to take out the Democratic Party. That’s their stated goal, they not only want to take out the Democratic Party, they want to take out the entire constitutional system that the Democratic Party is allowed to participate and govern in.”

Host Bill Maher then stated, “And they like Communism. I –.”

Peters then cut in to respond, “Yeah.”

Maher continued, “I proved it here a couple of weeks ago, just by quoting them, they use the word a lot, they’re not actually trying to hide it, although if you ask them, they will deny it.”

Peters then said, “They will. But some of them, this is why El-Sayed did quite well in Michigan, this is why the woman who is running against Karen Bass [for] mayor of L.A. is doing quite well, because they’ve learned how to sand down the rougher edges, and they don’t talk about socialism, they don’t talk about seizing the means of production and stuff like that. They’re getting — many of them — 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.”

Later, Peters did say El-Sayed isn’t a Democratic Socialist.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett