TEHRAN, Feb 20 - US President Donald Trump says Senator Bernie Sanders, who lost his battle for the Democratic nomination in 2016 to Hillary Clinton and has newly announced his candidacy for the White House in 2020, was “taken advantage of” and “not treated with respect” by the former secretary of state in the election race.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Trump made the comments in a press briefing at the Oval Office on Tuesday, just hours after the Vermont senator announced his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination next year.
"Personally I think he missed his time," Trump told reporters. "But I like Bernie because he is one person that, you know, on trade he sort of would agree on trade. I'm being very tough on trade, he was tough on trade."
"The problem is he doesn’t know what to do about it," Trump continued. "We’re doing something very spectacular on trade. But I wish Bernie well. It will be interesting to see how he does."
The US president sympathized with Sanders over his election defeat in 2016 and criticized the Democratic Party's treatment of the veteran politician during his White House bid at that time.
"What happened to Bernie maybe was not so nice," Trump said. "I think he was taken advantage of. He ran great four years ago and he was not treated with respect by Clinton and that was too bad."
During the briefing, Trump also shrugged off the mounting field of potential challengers in the 2020 US presidential election and predicted that he will win re-election no matter who the Democrats nominate.
"You’ve got a lot of people running but only one person’s going to win. I hope you know who that person is,” he said with a smile before shooing reporters out of the room.
The 77-year-old Sanders announced on Tuesday he will run again for president in the 2020 elections, calling Trump a "pathological liar" and an “embarrassment” to America.
Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2016, losing out to Clinton, who in turn was defeated by Trump.
Sanders mounted a fierce challenge to the former secretary of state as he spoke to swelling crowds and garnered passionate support on social media. His 2016 campaign also rejected the use of corporate money and instead relied on small-dollar donations.
His call for universal health care, a $15 minimum wage and free public university education has gained huge strong support among young liberals.
A former mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Sanders won a US House of Representatives seat in 1990, making him the first independent elected to the House in 40 years. In 2006, he won a US Senate seat and in 2018 was voted in for a third six-year term.
Sanders has been a relentless critic of Trump, and has called him “the most dangerous president in modern American history.”
The primaries and caucuses that determine the party's nominee will begin in February 2020 in the US state of Iowa.
Source: Press TV
Your Comment