Days after saying Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state raised “valid questions,” and after hints from his campaign that he’d take a tougher line on the issue, during Saturday night’s Democratic debate, Senator Bernie Sanders again offered the Democratic front-runner a way to avoid addressing her biggest weakness as a candidate.

“That’s just media stuff,” Sanders explained to a CBS moderator, who asked the Vermont senator about remarks he made last week to the Wall Street Journal that supported the ongoing FBI investigation into Clinton’s possibly negligent handling of classified information. “I was sick and tired of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail. I am STILL sick and tired of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail.”

Clinton, standing to his left, laughed uproariously as Sanders continued. “The issue is, the problem is the front pages every day were dealing with that,” he said. “I didn’t know I had so much power — day after I said that, we’re not hearing much about Hillary Clinton.”

Sanders went on to excoriate the media for not covering issues such as wealth inequality and a disappearing middle class. “We’ve gotten off of Hillary’s e-mails? Good. Let’s go to the major issues facing America.”

“I agree completely,” a beaming Clinton responded. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

#share#Moments later, Clinton seemed to misunderstand — perhaps deliberately — a question posed about the ongoing FBI investigation. “Can you satisfy Democrats who might worry about another shoe dropping, that you and your staff have been totally truthful with them and that another shoe’s not going to drop?” asked CBS’s John Dickerson.

“Well, I think after eleven hours, that’s pretty clear, yes,” Clinton said, referring to her marathon testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi last month but failing to address any aspect of the FBI’s investigation into her private server.