Vice President Joe Biden drew a distinction with his potential Democratic presidential rival Bernie Sanders on Thursday, portraying himself as more of a “realist” than Sanders, who he called a “populist.”
“I’m no Bernie Sanders,” Biden told the crowd at the Concordia Summit in New York. “He’s a great guy by the way. He really is. I’m not a populist. But I’m a realist.”
There has been widespread speculation about whether Biden will jump into the presidential race this fall. People close to Biden, who is still reeling from the death of his son this spring, say he has not yet made up his mind whether to enter the contest. On Thursday, CNN reported that Biden has extended his window for deciding whether to jump into the campaign.
Sanders is an openly declared Democratic socialist, and that populism has fueled huge crowds during the summer from progressives who think the Democratic Party — and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton — is too close to Wall Street. Biden drew a contrast with Sanders’ wing of the party on Thursday.
“If you take a look at everyone from the IMF to Standard and Poor’s, the greatest concern they have about economic growth is the concentration of wealth,” Biden said. But, he said, “if you make widgets and there’s not enough people to buy your widgets, you’re not going to do well.”