Trump welcomes 'crazy' Bernie Sanders to 2020 election race

'I wish him well!' US president tweets

Donald Trump has welcomed ‘crazy’ Bernie Sanders to the 2020 presidential election race.

“Crazy Bernie has just entered the race. I wish him well!” Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning, more than 24 hours after the Vermont senator announced his second bid for the presidency.

Mr Trump’s dubious welcome for Mr Sanders came sandwiched between tweets attacking former acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe and the “dishonest” media, who he accused without providing evidence of writing stories with “no basis in fact”.

The “crazy” moniker for Mr Sanders is nothing new – Mr Trump first used the nickname during the 2016 presidential race, when Mr Sanders failed to beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

“If Crooked Hillary Clinton can’t close the deal on Crazy Bernie, how is she going to take on China, Russia, ISIS and all of the others?” Mr Trump tweeted in May of that year.

The president’s resurfacing of the insult against Mr Sanders comes amid a reported workshopping in the White house of nicknames for his potential 2020 Democratic challengers.

Before airing them publicly, Mr Trump has been testing monikers for his likely opponents on aides and advisers, according to the Associated Press.