Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is inching toward a 2020 Democratic presidential bid, launched a full frontal attack on President Trump’s leadership, blaming him for expanding racial division in America.
“He has unleashed something,” said the Democrat and close ally to both former President Clinton and his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton.
He initially joked about his 2020 plans. “I’m going to announce right here,” he said at a conference on the Trump presidency at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics in Charlottesville, Va.
More seriously, he said, “I will make a decision by March 31.”
And he promised, “I’m going to do everything that I can to make sure that Donald Trump is not in office in 2020.”
[Read more: 45 Democrats jostling to challenge Trump in 2020]
He predicted that there would be up to 10 serious Democratic candidates in the primaries that start next year.
McAuliffe also said that the early candidates will need to raise $50 million to compete, and expects that the “weeding” process will happen fast.
A former Democratic National Committee chairman, he even discussed upcoming presidential debates. He said there will be two early debates in June. He added that the party plans to pull a few names out of a hat to determine those on stage.
Formally from the centrist wing of the party, McAuliffe also called on Democrats not to over promise on the presidential campaign trail. For example he mocked calls for free college for all students. “I’m trying to get some realism into the debate today,” he said.
In attacking Trump, McAuliffe expressed disappointment that the president did not make a forceful anti-racist statement after the August 12, 2017, racial clash at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, killing one and injuring 28.
“It was his biggest moment in two years and he fumbled,” he said adding, “I don’t think our president has a moral core.”
