Joe Biden (D) told reporters on Friday that he would not respond to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) “ridiculous” critiques, proclaiming that the socialist senator has “enough baggage.”
Sanders took shots at Biden in an interview with the Washington Post this week, telling the paper that the former vice president carries “a lot of baggage” in the campaign, “which isn’t going to create energy and excitement.”
“People are tired of the traditional types of campaigns in which candidates like Joe are running to wealthy people’s homes and raising large sums of money,” Sanders said.
Sanders also lit up Biden over his past positions, particularly his support of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Iraq War.
“It doesn’t take much imagination to understand that Trump will be saying, ‘You see this guy? He voted for NAFTA,’” Sanders said.
Sanders issued similar remarks during an interview with the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board last month.
“Joe Biden is a personal friend of mine, so I’m not here to, you know, to attack him,” Sanders said.
“But my God, if you are, if you’re a Donald Trump and you got Biden having voted for the war in Iraq, Biden having voted for these terrible, in my view, trade agreements, Biden having voted for the bankruptcy bill,” he continued.
“Trump will eat his lunch,” he added.
Biden refused to respond directly to Sanders’ critiques, telling reporters, “I don’t respond to Bernie’s ridiculous comments.”
“You’re not going to get me in a fight with Bernie. Bernie’s got enough baggage,” Biden said, echoing Sanders’ remarks.
Biden and Sanders are leading the crowded field, separated by ten percentage points — 29.4 percent and 19.4 percent, respectively — Saturday’s RealClearPolitics average showed.