Herb Jackson

Washington correspondent

Sen. Bernie Sanders said Thursday he might support Assemblyman John Wisniewski’s bid to be New Jersey’s governor next year, but he testily rebuffed a question about the presidential prospects of Sen. Cory Booker, saying it was too early and the media should focus its energies elsewhere.

His comments came during a wide-ranging breakfast with reporters in which he also talked about where he could work with and would oppose President-elect Donald Trump and what he thinks Democrats need to do going forward.

Wisniewski, a former state Democratic chairman from Sayerville, chaired Sanders’ campaign in New Jersey's June primary this year when almost all of the party’s leadership supported Hillary Clinton. Clinton won, 63 percent to 37 percent.

“I know John a little bit and I’ve had the opportunity to meet John and I look forward, I think I’ve got a call that’s going to be made to John,” Sanders said at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “But I do very much appreciate the efforts that John has made in New Jersey.”

Wisniewski announced this week he would challenge Phil Murphy, a millionaire former ambassador to Germany and executive at Goldman Sachs, for the Democratic nomination for governor. Sanders’ campaign stump speech regularly railed against Wall Street bankers and Goldman Sachs in particular, and on Thursday he said the party’s future success relied connecting more with working people than big contributors.

Sanders is is touting a new book, and when asked about Booker, he highlighted a chapter that assails corporate-owned media for focusing on gossip and speculation and not on issues that matter to the public.

"This is incredible," Sanders said. "We haven’t even inaugurated this president and we’re talking about 2020 because it’s easy to write about."

Sanders said the media’s resources would be better focused on climate change, minority youth unemployment, income inequality, immigration reform and justice reform.

"Who’s running in 2020 or 2090 is of no concern and I got to tell you, people are turning off their TVs. They are tired of all that stuff," he said.

Sanders said how Trump fares once he is inaugurated depends on which campaign themes he tries to pursue and which turn out to be false promises.

He said that if Trump follows through on protecting Social Security, raising the minimum wage and taking on the power of drug companies, they could work together. But he said that if he tries expel immigrants and bar Muslims from entering the country, he would fight Trump.

Like many other Democrats on Capitol, Sanders attacked Trump’s decision to name Steve Bannon, a former chairman of breitbart.com, as a top White House adviser.

“I would hope very much that President-elect Trump understands the fear and anxiety of his attitudes on race, on his attitudes towards women, and would try to make the American people feel comfortable, more comfortable. And I would hope he would do it by rescinding the nomination of Mr. Bannon,” Sanders said.

Sanders noted he spent much of his campaign against Clinton arguing that the tax structure is unfair, but Trump made the point better than he could have by saying he’d been able to avoid paying any federal income tax.

“If I have anything to say about it, Donald Trump and his billionaire friends will start paying their fair share,” Sanders said.

Sanders declined to speculate on whether he could have won the election, saying it did not make sense to look backward. But looking forward, he said the Democratic Party has to do some soul searching after losing the White House to someone such as Trump who has such high disapproval ratings.

“I think it is time for the Democratic Party to reassess what it stands for and where it wants to go,” he said. “It’s not possible to be the candidate of corporate America, it’s not possible to be the candidate of the insurance companies or Wall Street and take huge amounts of money from powerful special interests and then say you’re the champion of the needs of the declining middle class or low-income people.”