Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden took a not-at-all veiled “socialist” swipe at his former primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), on Monday night during an NBC News town hall in Miami. “I’m the guy who ran against the socialists,” said Biden, who was responding to an attendee’s question about President Donald Trump’s campaign sending false information to voters of Cuban and Venezuelan backgrounds about communism and socialism.
Biden did not reference Sanders by name, but the Vermont senator is the only self-identified Democratic socialist who competed in the 2020 presidential primary. “I have taken on the people we’re worried about,” Biden said. “I’ve taken on the Castros of the world, the Putins of the world. I’ve been straightforward with them. I let them know it stops here. It stops with me. It stops with me as president. I’m no more a socialist or communist than Donald Trump is—well, I won’t say it. They need not worry. Look at the record. There’s not one syllable I’ve ever said that could lead you to believe I was a socialist or communist.”
