The President was at it again on the eve of the Iowa caucus,
tweeting that the Democratic National Committee was trying to "rig the election against Sanders," even as
he called Bernie Sanders a "communist" in a pre-Super Bowl safe-space interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News.
It's been a repeated riff for months. Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt on "Meet The Press"
announced that he was voting for Bernie in Virginia's open primary -- because he wanted a clear contrast between an authentic socialist and Donald Trump.
This isn't subtle. Team Trump wants to run against Bernie Sanders. If you don't believe me, just ask them.
"We're trying to promote the rise," an unnamed Trump adviser
told Jonathan Swann from Axios. "The campaign has been pumping up the national messaging behind Bernie, pushing out fundraising emails. When you attack his policies, it gets the media to talk about him."
so why does the Trump team want to pump up Bernie Sanders' chances? Hint: It's not because they share
some of the same protectionist impulses on trade or isolationist impulses on foreign policies, as Trump has argued in the past. And it's not because Trump and Sanders were the two candidates
being pushed by Russian trolls and bots in the 2016 election.
It's because Donald Trump
does best running against a self-described socialist, beating a socialist by an average of six points, despite
currently losing to the named top-tier Democratic candidates in head-to-head match-ups.
The candidate who has
consistently done best against Trump head to head -- including in crucial swing states -- is Joe Biden.
