Donald Trump blasts "Crazy Bernie Sanders"
Donald Trump is hitting "Crazy Bernie Sanders" -- but not "too hard" -- just a day after the Vermont senator notched two more wins in the Democratic primary contest.
I don't want to hit Crazy Bernie Sanders too hard yet because I love watching what he is doing to Crooked Hillary. His time will come!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2016
Trump followed up on the new nickname for his rival during a phone interview with Fox News early Wednesday, saying Sanders was "crazy" because "he's not very good."
"You know, I call him crazy Bernie because he's not very good," Trump said. "But probably beating him would be easier."
He added: "Who's going to run against the socialist and lose? I mean, he's the socialist. You're going to pay 95 percent tax. I'd love to run against him in one way."
When Fox News hosts pointed out that recent polling has shown Sanders outperforming Trump in a general election head-to-head matchup, Trump dismissed the survey results.
"I know -- but I've never hit him, don't forget," he said. "I haven't started on him. I haven't said anything about him."
Despite Trump's recent claim, the billionaire has, in fact, slammed Sanders before.
When the Democratic candidate met with Pope Francis at the Vatican last month, Trump mocked the meeting on the campaign trail.
"You know, he went to see the pope," Trump said of Sanders during a rally in Syracuse, New York. "Five minutes. Then he came out. He said, 'We talked about the environment, we talked about global warming, we talked about all these different things.' ... And I said, wait a minute, he was only there five minutes. So the pope gave him five minutes. I wonder why the pope gave him five -- he shouldn't have given him that much time really."
In March, supporters of Trump and Sanders clashed at a couple of campaign venues. Trump said that the Vermont senator's supporters "taunted" and "harassed" people who had shown up for his rally in Chicago, and he threatened to set his own supporters on Bernie Sanders' rallies, warning the senator to "be careful."
The presumptive GOP nominee suggested he might be ratcheting up his rhetoric against Sanders in the near future.
"I would start," Trump said. "Maybe I'm going to have to start, based on -- he wins, wins, wins and then everybody sits around the table and says he can't win."