Trump bashes Democratic rivals at pre-Super Bowl show

PALM BEACH, FLORIDA >> President Donald Trump used a Super Bowl pregame interview to rail against Democrats, accusing them of hatred and offering schoolyard insults about his potential 2020 rivals.

“I see the hatred . ... They don’t care about fairness, they don’t care about lying,” Trump said in a taped interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, which aired on Fox hours before sports’ biggest night of the year.

Trump spent his weekend in Florida as most of the political world has been focused on Iowa, where Democrats today will cast their first votes to choose the party’s nominee.

Prompted by Hannity, Trump went through most of the major candidates one by one, deriding “Sleepy Joe” Biden, the former vice president; accusing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren of telling “fairy tales”; and labeling Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, as “a communist,” even though he’s not.

But Trump seemed most preoccupied by the candidate who has chosen to skip the early-voting sates: Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, who has been blanketing the airwaves with anti-Trump ads.

Trump’s campaign and Bloomberg’s ran dueling multimillion-dollar ads during Sunday night’s game.

In the Fox interview, Trump accused Bloomberg, who is widely reported to be 5 feet, 8 inches tall, of making a special request for a box to stand on if he qualifies for future presidential debates. Bloomberg’s campaign denies that is the case. “Why should he get a box to stand on?” Trump asked. “Why should he be entitled to that, really? Then does that mean everyone else gets a box?”

Bloomberg campaign spokeswoman Julie Wood said Trump was “lying.”

“He is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity and his spray-on tan,” she said.

A Democratic official said there have been no discussions about the topic, noting that Bloomberg has yet to qualify for a debate.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a policy of not discussing conversations with candidates.

Earlier Sunday, Trump fired off a series of antiBloomberg tweets, calling the billionaire “part of the Fake News” and insisting he “is going nowhere” and “just wasting his money,” despite rising in the polls.

Bloomberg responded with his own aside: “Looks like our ads are keeping you up at night. We’ve got one in particular you should watch today.”

Bloomberg’s 60-second spot focused on the impact of gun violence.

In the Fox interview, Trump also criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats.