Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is contemplating launching another bid for the White House in 2020.
“Look, I would not be honest with you if I didn’t say I’m thinking of running,” Sanders told ABC’s “The View” on Monday. “And also there are other great candidates out there, many of them personal friends of mine. But I think what is most important right now is that Trump be defeated, his hateful rhetoric and his divisiveness end, and that we as a nation come together respectfully.”
Will Sen. @BernieSanders run for president in 2020? “I would not be honest with you if I didn’t say I’m thinking of running,” he says. pic.twitter.com/tH6MgeCc9F
— The View (@TheView) November 26, 2018
Sanders challenged Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, drumming up a legion of supporters and small dollar donations for his democratic socialist policy platforms. Sanders fell shore in his Democratic primary effort, but won a series of key states like Michigan, exposing Clinton’s weaknesses there in the fall campaign.
His comments on the daytime talk show Monday come on the heels of a Sunday interview with New York Magazine, in which he reiterated how Trump would effect his calculus.
“If there’s somebody else who appears who can, for whatever reason, do a better job than me, I’ll work my ass off to elect him or her,” Sanders, who caucuses with Senate Democrats, told the outlet. “If it turns out that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump, then I will probably run.”
The longtime senator, 77, is set to release another book Tuesday, “Where We Go From Here.”
“This book is about some of what I and millions of progressives have been trying to accomplish day by day over the last several years,” Sanders wrote in an excerpt published Monday by ABC News. “We must create a vibrant democracy where the voices of all people are heard. We must build a nation that leads the world in the struggle for peace, and for economic, social, racial, and environmental justice. And we must unite our country while repairing the damage Trump has done trying to divide us up.”
Clinton vanquished Sanders in 2016 by more than 3 million votes, earning 55.2 percent support among Democrats in their primary contest to Sanders’ 43.1 percent, as well as 2,842 delegates to his 1,865.
