AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Weren't you glad that Martha really pressed [Sen. Bernie Sanders]? How are you going to pay for this? And he said basically no deductibles and --

STUART VARNEY (FOX BUSINESS HOST): He deflected.

EARHARDT: Yeah, but he said your taxes will go up.

VARNEY: You're going to pay these high tax rates. He deflected. All right, look. Here is a guy who is -- he's a 1 percenter. He's a millionaire. And he's a socialist. I got a problem with that. He is trying to make sure that we, the rest of us on our way up, don't accumulate the kind of pile that he has already got at 77.

BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): And on the way out, with the estate tax. 

VARNEY: It is outrageous. He wants to raise the estate tax dramatically to take it off you. Now look, where is the fairness in this? Where is the fairness in taking more, wait, wait, wait. Bernie Sanders constantly goes back to the idea he has a fair plan. He is for fairness in our society. Where is the fairness in taking more than half of anyone's income? Where is it?

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): Stuart, it's his dynamic. It's different than anybody -- you know, when he first burst on scene a couple of years ago, he's a Democratic socialist. It's about socialism.

VARNEY: Where is the fairness in confiscating our money when we've saved all our lives for that money to pass on to our children and our grandchildren? Where is the fairness in confiscating that?

EARHARDT: Or where is the fairness in if you don't work, but I work really hard, where is the fairness in taking half of my paycheck to give it to you who is not working at all? 

VARNEY: It's a different concept of fairness, is it not? To me, fairness is allowing people with the brains, talent, drive, and ability to climb that food chain and get to the top and stay there and be proud of it. Fairness to him is taking it off you. 

DOOCY: Well Stuart, I've got news for you, he's the front-runner.  

VARNEY: Well, OK. 

DOOCY: Of the declared candidates. 

VARNEY: What can I say. If the Democratic Party has moved so far to the left that Bernie Sanders, a socialist, is now the front-runner, I would confidently predict that he loses in 2020 and Donald Trump wins. 

KILMEADE: A couple of things he said. He pushed back when he said, “I don't vilify millionaires.” Martha said to him, you know, you vilify millionaires. [Inaudible] Millionaires and billionaires. 

VARNEY: He's changed his language. Just a couple years ago he was ranting about millionaires and billionaires. 

DOOCY: Like him.

VARNEY: Well now, he is a millionaire, so he's dropped the rant against millionaires, it's just billionaires. I mean, he's set his sights a little bit higher than this. I'm sorry, but that was an unconvincing performance last night. And hats off to Bret and Martha --

KILMEADE: They were great.

VARNEY: -- who pressed him hard and made it entertaining discussion of socialism. I thought it was good.

Related:

CNN: New Sanders tax plan targets estates of the ultra-rich

Previously:

Fox's Stuart Varney claims people “in the 1 percent” like himself are taxed more under Trump

Fox Business' Stuart Varney: “A living wage is not a right. It simply is not a right.”

Fox's Stuart Varney: “Senator Warren is on a jihad against big tech and big business generally”