New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker believes Americans will be more open to finding common ground in 2020 — in large part — because of President Donald Trump.
"He's using the highest office in this land to commit act after act of moral vandalism, to do things to divide, demean, and degrade us, and he is doing great in the politics of pinning Americans against each other."
The Democratic presidential hopeful kept circling back to this theme during an interviewed with theNPR Politics Podcast and New Hampshire Public Radio. The candidate series is produced in collaboration with NHPR and Iowa Public Radio.
This interview was conducted by NPR's Scott Detrow and NHPR's Casey McDermott.
Booker pointed to his time as former mayor of Newark, N.J., when asked about what sets him apart in the large field of Democrats running for President.
"I am the only person in this race who was a chief executive of a state's largest city in the middle of a massive recession, and a city that had a reputation for decades and decades of decay and declined, and we turned it around in a pretty dramatic fashion."
Uniting the country, and not just Democrats after a long primary contest, must be a priority, Booker says.
"I really do think we're at a crossroads now in this country where there is a descent into tribalism —tribalism to me is fear-based, it's us vs. them, it's a zero sum game politics, and that to me is going to lead us further and further into an intractable world where we don't get things done and we divide this country more."
Listen to the full episode above.
