Obama Thinks Sanders Unfit To Battle Trump — And May Soon Publicly Denounce The Socialist

Barack Obama is still the spiritual leader of the Democrat Party, even though he hasn’t been on a ticket since 2012. 

And the former president is playing kingmaker for the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination, meeting privately with many of the candidates vying for the slot.

But he’s not a big fan of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democrat Socialist from Vermont, who has risen to the top of many polls in recent weeks.

Obama has grown “wary” of Sanders and his socialist proposals, Fox Business reports.

Obama has told people in private that Sanders is both temperamentally and politically unfit to beat Trump in the 2020 general election, these people say. Among his concerns are Sanders’ strident form of politics and confrontational manners where he was known not to seek compromise during his long years in the US Senate. Meanwhile, Obama is said to worry that Sanders’ far-left policies, which include massive tax increases, free college tuition and massive student debt forgiveness, would alienate even traditional Democratic voters. And may alienate them enough to re-elect Trump, who is seeking a second term despite historically low favorability ratings given his own bombastic style, these people tell FOX Business.

With that, Obama is weighing a more forceful rebuke of Sanders as the candidate to lead the Democrats in 2020, according to people who have spoken to the former president. It’s unclear if Obama will name Sanders specifically if he does indeed decide to make a statement or if he will address the matter in more general terms as he did in November. Obama may also decide to remain silent, particularly if Joe Biden, his former vice president, or Warren begin to overtake Sanders in the early primaries and in polling.

Obama has stayed in the wings throughout the early stages of the primaries, but he did weigh in last November. He said the hard push to the left by many candidates will not be rewarded in the general election against Trump, when politically moderate voters often decide the presidential race.

“Even as we push the envelope and we are bold in our vision we also have to be rooted in reality,” Obama said then. “The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.”

“Acknowledging that candidates must ‘push past’ his achievements,” The Times wrote,” “Mr. Obama urged his party’s candidates not to push too far, as he urged them to adopt a message that would allow them to compete in all corners of the country.”

“I don’t think we should be deluded into thinking that the resistance to certain approaches to things is simply because voters haven’t heard a bold enough proposal and if they hear something as bold as possible then immediately that’s going to activate them,” he said.

Two-time loser Hillary Clinton also detests Sanders, saying “no one likes him.” In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hillary attacked Sanders, saying she may not endorse him if he wins the nomination.  “He was in Congress for years… Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done,” she said. “He was a career politician. It’s all baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”