President Donald Trump says it would be “a dream” to run against former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump, in an interview that aired Thursday, went on to tell CBS News’ Jeff Glor that former President Barack Obama took Biden “out of the garbage heap.”
When Glor asked Trump whom he believes his Democratic opponent will be in the next presidential election, the President said, “I dream about Biden, that’s a dream. Look, Joe Biden ran three times, he never got more than 1% and President Obama took him out of the garbage heap and everybody was shocked that he did. I’d love to have it be Biden.”
Biden, however, only ran for president twice, in 1988 and 2008.
Biden, a former Democratic senator from Delaware, has not shied away from criticizing Trump, saying recently that the President’s news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin was “beneath the dignity of the office of the president.”
A spokesman for Biden declined to respond to Trump’s remarks.
Trump expressed confidence in facing off against other potential Democratic 2020 contenders as well, though he did not mention anyone else by name in the CBS segment that aired.
“I think I’d like to have any one of those people that we’re talking about, there’s probably the group of seven or eight right now, I’d like to run against any one of them,” the President said, before returning to criticism of Biden.
“Biden, never by himself, could never do anything,” Trump said.
Biden is considered to be a leading 2020 Democratic hopeful. The former vice president has played coy about his future political prospects and said he plans to make a 2020 decision by January.
CNN polling from January 2018 found Trump lagging behind Biden in a hypothetical 2020 match-up by a 57% to 40% split.
Trump’s interview with Glor has also attracted attention for notable comments the President made on Wednesday saying that he holds Putin responsible for 2016 election interference.
CNN’s Dan Merica and Ryan Struyk contributed to this report.
