Sen. Bernie Sanders took aim at Joe Biden in a recent interview, saying he does not excite the Democratic base enough to beat President Trump in 2020.
“It’s just a lot of baggage that Joe takes into a campaign, which isn’t going to create energy and excitement,” the Vermont independent who is running as a Democrat told the Washington Post on Thursday. “He brings into this campaign a record which is so weak that it just cannot create the kind of excitement and energy that is going to be needed to defeat Donald Trump.”
“It doesn’t take much imagination to understand that Trump will be saying, ‘You see this guy? He voted for NAFTA,'” Sanders added. He also pointed to the former vice president’s support of the Iraq War as another policy that he thought would hurt Biden’s chances of winning the presidency.
“People are tired of the traditional types of campaigns in which candidates like Joe are running to wealthy people’s homes and raising large sums of money,” Sanders said. His campaign has sworn off fundraisers with wealthy donors but still managed to rake in $34.5 million for the last quarter, the most in the field. Biden, 77, brought in $22.7 million for the quarter.
Despite strong fundraising numbers, Sanders still trails Biden, who is the front-runner in the polls by nearly 10%.
