Cory Booker said Tuesday he is going to love and pray for Donald Trump after the Republican nominee attacked him on Twitter following the New Jersey senator’s speech to the Democratic National Convention.
“I love Donald Trump,” Booker said Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day.” “I don’t want to answer his hate with hate. I’m going to answer it with love. I’m not going to answer his darkness with darkness.”
Booker called Trump out in his speech attacking him for his words about immigrants, women and people with disability.
Trump responded saying he knows “more about Cory” than the senator himself.
“If Cory Booker is the future of the Democratic Party, they have no future! I know more about Cory than he knows about himself,” he tweeted Monday.
But Booker dismissed the suggestion.
“He wants us to be speculating. It sounds so sinister,” he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota. “I don’t care, I love you Donald. I pray for you. I hope that you find some kindness in your heart, that you’re not going to be somebody that spews out insults to your political opposition, that you’re going to find some way to love.”
But don’t confuse Booker’s love for Trump as an endorsement for his candidacy.
“I love you. I just don’t want him to be my president. I don’t want you to have the White House to be spewing that kind of mean-spirited hate that doesn’t even belong in a playground sandbox,” he said.
Booker has hit the campaign trail with Clinton in the past and said he will continue to attack Trump’s policies.
“I’m just gonna keep loving on him. I’m gonna tell the truth about him but I’m going to keep loving on him,” he said. “That kind of vitriol, that kind of meanness has no place in the presidency.”
“Bring it on Donald. Show your truth. I’m gonna show mine. Love you, brother,” he added.