In audio released by Lev Parnas’ lawyer of an April 2018 Trump fundraising dinner, President Trump can be heard saying that it would have been “tougher” to win the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton if Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) had been her running mate. “If she picked Bernie as vice president it would have been tougher... I think Bernie because, all those people that hated her so much who voted for me,” Trump said, adding that he got “20 percent of the Bernie vote” because Sanders was a “big trade guy” like him. “But had she picked Bernie Sanders it would have been tougher. He was the only one I didn't want her to pick,” he said. He then asks one of the dinner guests, “Is he going to be running?” before going on to speculate. “I think he might, because he does a lot of television. Usually when they do a lot of television that means they're running,” he said. Sanders is currently a front-runner in the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, and The Daily Beast reported that Trump has often asked advisers about how Sanders is polling and his prospects.
