US President Donald Trump ‘unwarmly’ welcomed Bernie Sanders to the 2020 White House race on Tuesday, but said the Democratic hopeful probably “missed his time.”
“I wish Bernie well,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It will be interesting to see how he does.
“Personally, I think he missed his time,” Trump said of Sanders, who lost the 2016 Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton.
“But I like Bernie,” Trump continued, saying that the two of them “sort of would agree on trade.”
Sanders announced his candidacy Tuesday morning. Trump argued that despite claiming a democratic socialist ideology, which the GOP has vilified, Sanders would two would agree with him on trade.
Like Trump, the Vermont senator espouses a protectionist trade platform. And in 2016, he was seen as pushing Clinton leftward on trade, which resulted in Clinton withdrawing her support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.
“I’m being very tough on trade,” he said. “The problem is (Bernie) doesn’t know what to do about it.”
Trump also said he thought Sanders was “not treated with respect” when he ran against Clinton in 2016.
“We’ll see how he does,” Trump said. “We got a lot of people running. Only one person is going to win. I hope you know who that person is.”
Sanders, 77, accused Trump of being a “racist” and a “pathological liar” as he launched his second bid for the White House on Tuesday.
The White House has sought to tie Sanders’ progressive ideology to the rest of the Democrats running for president in 2020, painting proposals championed by Sanders — like “Medicare for All” and raising taxes on the wealthy — that have become more mainstream as radical and impractical, though they have somewhat divided 2020 Democrats.
Trump also returned to a familiar refrain against Clinton, claiming that Sanders was unfairly treated by the Democratic Party and Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 primary.
“I think what happened to Bernie maybe was not so nice. I think he was taken advantage of. He ran great four years ago,” he said. “And he was not treated with respect by Clinton, and that was too bad.”