In this 2020 campaign clip, President Donald Trump calls the joint policy recommendations of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders a manifesto that is beyond socialism. The recommendations were drawn up by unity task forces set up by the Biden and Sanders campaigns after the Democratic primaries, and Trump presents them as evidence that Biden had surrendered to the left wing of his party. The word manifesto is chosen deliberately, evoking the Communist Manifesto and suggesting that the document is not a normal party platform.
Trump’s argument is that the recommendations — on climate, health care, the economy and other subjects — go further than socialism itself, toward a system of government control that Americans would not accept if it were described plainly. He warns that Biden, presented as a moderate, would in practice carry out a programme written by the most radical voices in his party. Biden’s supporters, by contrast, argued that the task-force recommendations were a compromise, and that Biden’s own record and instincts were firmly in the mainstream of American liberalism.
The clip matters because the manifesto charge became a recurring theme of the 2020 race, and because it shows how the language of socialism and communism was used to define a candidate. Whether viewers think the description was fair or a caricature, the video is a clear record of the rhetoric of that campaign, and of the wider argument over how far the Democratic Party had moved to the left.