President Trump all but ruled out Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) chances of securing the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, and predicted that the Vermont senator’s supporters would flock to his chief progressive rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in his absence.
“It looks like Bernie lost his chance, right?” Trump quipped during a rally in Louisiana on Friday, an apparent reference to the progressive firebrand’s heart attack last week. “Bernie, get better fast. It’s the only time I’ve ever said anything good about him.”
{mosads}“It looks like when Bernie gets out, which seems inevitable, when Bernie gets out, it looks like those will go to your radical leftist Elizabeth Warren,” he added.
The remarks were the first Trump has made about Sanders’s recent health event. The Vermont senator underwent a procedure last week to have two stents inserted after experiencing what his campaign initially described as “chest discomfort” during a campaign event.
Days later, as Sanders was discharged from the hospital, his campaign revealed that he had suffered a heart attack.
The episode has brought Sanders’s age — he’s 78 years old and would be 79 by the time he took office — and health to the forefront of his presidential campaign at a time when he has seen his political support slip. A handful of recent polls show him losing ground to Warren, who has eclipsed Sanders as the progressive standard-bearer on the campaign trail.
Throughout the rally, Trump alternated between taking shots and Warren and the family former Vice President Joe Biden, whom many polls show in a neck and neck race with Warren for the Democratic nomination.
At one point he suggested that the media, a frequent target of Trump’s ire, would endorse him in the 2020 election over Warren.
“I actually think they’re going to endorse me, because if they don’t, can you imagine having Pocahontas as your president,” he said.
At another point, he railed against Biden’s younger son Hunter, whom he claimed improperly earned billions of dollars from his work in China and Ukraine. Trump is currently facing an impeachment inquiry in the House over his efforts to pressure foreign government officials to investigate Biden and his son.