President Donald Trump predicted the list of likely candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination has winnowed for good to the handful of the party’s top-polling White House hopefuls — assessing there are no other contenders currently “gaining traction” in the expansive field.
“The fact is that I think those would be probably the three or four, maybe there is another one or two,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on his show Thursday night, after trashing the pack's frontrunners: Former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen.
Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris.That quartet of candidates consistently rank among the top four choices of Democratic voters in primary surveys, followed frequently in fifth place by Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. The rest of the nearly two-dozen competitors largely remain mired in the low-single digits.
“You know, I don't necessarily see anybody else gaining traction," the president said Thursday.
Trump particularly relished swatting at Biden during his interview, deriding the former vice president as “Sleepy Joe” and comparing his performance on the campaign trail to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress on Wednesday, which was criticized as halting and stilted.
“I think he's fading fast. The only good thing about Mueller is it made Joe Biden look like a dynamo,” Trump said, adding: “I think probably Biden is the one that asked him to go on."
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine