Trump urges Sanders supporters to join GOP after senator suspends campaign

President Trump on Wednesday urged Sen. Bernie Sanders’s supporters to join the Republican Party after the independent Vermont senator announced he was suspending his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Trump also thanked Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), reiterating his belief that she may have taken away enough votes from Sanders on Super Tuesday last month to cost him states. Warren finished third or in some cases a distant fourth in each state Joe Biden won on Super Tuesday.

“Bernie Sanders is OUT! Thank you to Elizabeth Warren. If not for her, Bernie would have won almost every state on Super Tuesday!” Trump tweeted.

“This ended just like the Democrats & the DNC wanted, same as the Crooked Hillary fiasco,” he added. “The Bernie people should come to the Republican Party, TRADE!”

Bernie Sanders is OUT! Thank you to Elizabeth Warren. If not for her, Bernie would have won almost every state on Super Tuesday! This ended just like the Democrats & the DNC wanted, same as the Crooked Hillary fiasco. The Bernie people should come to the Republican Party, TRADE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2020 

Sanders’s decision to suspend his campaign paves the way for Biden to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.

The president has sought for months to stoke tensions within the Democratic Party around Sanders’s candidacy. He has repeatedly suggested the party establishment was attempting to “steal” the nomination from the progressive senator, though Wednesday’s tweet marked his most explicit outreach to potentially disaffected Sanders supporters.

Trump continued to tweet as Sanders delivered remarks about his decision. The president questioned the senator’s decision to remain on the ballot to collect delegates and exert influence over the Democratic platform, and he later suggested some of Sanders’s most progressive allies would not back Biden.

“Can’t see AOC plus 3 supporting Sleepy Joe!” Trump tweeted, referencing Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). Pressley supported Warren’s candidacy, while the other three lawmakers were Sanders surrogates.

Can’t see AOC plus 3 supporting Sleepy Joe!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2020

Trump and Sanders — whom the president has dubbed “Crazy Bernie” — have some overlapping policy views on trade and both rode populist waves in 2016 to become front-runners in their respective primaries.

But Sanders has been among the harshest critics of Trump’s presidency, labeling him a racist and a liar and more recently chastising him for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Updated at 12:21 p.m.