Sanders Calls Out Biden’s Record on Iraq War, Medicare, NAFTA: He Won’t Drive ‘Energy and Excitement’ Necessary to Beat Trump

Bernie Sanders called out his 2020 Democratic rival Joe Biden on CNN’s AC360, saying the former vice president’s record of supporting the Iraq War, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and NAFTA will fail to generate the necessary enthusiasm among voters to defeat President Donald Trump.

Anderson Cooper pushed Sanders on his recent comments in a Washington Post report, where the independent Vermont senator zeroed in on the “baggage” of Biden’s legislative record, criticizing it as “so weak” on a number of policy issues.

“I want to focus a little bit on domestic policy, obviously, with Iowa and New Hampshire coming up,” Cooper said. “Is there something specifically you were referring to in terms of ‘baggage?'”

Sanders, who has mostly refrained from directly attacking his Democratic primary rivals, began by emphasizing that he and Biden are friends. But he went on to point out that the party’s number one goal is to defeat the president in 2020.

“What is imperative is that we defeat Trump, the most dangerous president in modern history. And that means you’re going to have to have a huge voter turnout,” Sanders claimed. “You’ll have to have working people excited. You’ll have to get young people excited. Joe Biden voted and helped lead the effort for the war in Iraq, the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in the modern history of this country. Joe Biden voted for the disastrous trade agreements, like NAFTA, and permanent normal trade relations with China, which cost us millions of jobs. You think that’s going to play well in Michigan or Wisconsin or Pennsylvania?”

“So if we’re going to beat Trump, we need turnout,” Sanders added. “And to get turnout, you need energy and excitement. And I don’t think that that kind of record is going to bring forth the energy we need to defeat Trump.”