Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images 2020 elections Booker holds court in Newark — and breaks with Harris, Sanders

NEWARK, N.J. — Cory Booker distanced himself Friday from the rhetoric and policy of a pair of his Senate colleagues and addressed two of his potential vulnerabilities.

Speaking to reporters outside his home here on his first day as a presidential candidate, Booker distinguished himself from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a potential primary opponent who explicitly called President Donald Trump “a racist” on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He also broke with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who embraced eliminating private health insurance during a CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday.


Booker said Trump has said bigoted things but declined to call the president a racist. “I don’t know the heart of anybody,” said Booker, who stammered and paused before answering. “I’ll leave that to the Lord.”

But his White House bid isn’t so much about who sits in the Oval Office as it is about who he believes should be sitting there in January 2021 and why.

“I’m gonna run a race about not who I’m against or what I’m against but who I’m for and what I’m for,” Booker said. “I’m not looking even simplistically to beat Republicans. No, I’m looking to unite Americans in this race.”

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Booker said he opposes eliminating the legislative filibuster to ease partisan bills through the Senate and broke with Harris by saying as president he wouldn’t eliminate private health insurance. “Even countries that have vast access to publicly offered health care still have private health care,” he said. Booker and Harris, however, are both co-sponsors on Sanders’ Medicare-for-all bill, which would eliminate private health insurance.

The New Jersey senator also defended his record on schools and his relationship with the banking industry — both potential liabilities in a Democratic primary.

Booker said he was proud of his record on education, dismissing the notion that his support for school choice is a position he has to “defend” and noting that his last Senate campaign was endorsed by teachers unions.

And he shrugged off criticism that he’s too cozy with Wall Street, citing a history of “standing up for people” and a record as a mayor and senator who has fought against those interests for his constituents.

Appearing loose and upbeat, Booker held court with reporters during a frigid 20-minute news conference — and made clear his would be a very different kind of campaign.

“Love ain’t easy,” Booker said, emphasizing the biggest theme of his campaign. “It’s easy to say, ‘I love America.’ But love is not a word. It is action. It is sacrifice. It is work.”

If his message sounded decidedly out of tune in the current slash-and-burn political environment, Booker is more than OK with that.

“I’m running for president because I believe in us. I believe in these values,” he said. “I’m gonna put them before the American people. Hey, and if that’s not what they want, then I won’t be the next president of the United States, but I know my country. I know the goodness and the decency across this land.”

The intentional lack of stage management was striking for a presidential candidate just launching his campaign. Booker walked around his neighborhood with no visible security presence before turning into his yard and addressing the media. On TV, there was a chain link face behind him, and people milling about.

He answered a question in Spanish, shouted “¡Hermana!” in the middle of another response when he spotted his neighbor outside and mixed in a couple jokes: one “get off my lawn” line made in jest with a reporter and another quip about missing “Obama” — first lady Michelle foremost, but also the former president.

Booker, who is up for reelection to the Senate in 2020, pledged to be “an active force” in the upper chamber even as he campaigns for president across the country. He will visit Iowa next weekend, then head to South Carolina and stop in New Hampshire over Presidents’ Day weekend.

He touted his ability to work across the aisle and insisted there’s enough consensus in Congress “to make big changes in America” on health care, education, infrastructure and security but lamented that partisanship gets in the way of such progress.

“I’m really excited over the coming months to put my ideas before the American people. I have confidence in them,” he said. “But the other thing I’m gonna be trying to do over these next months is to just appeal to what I know is the goodness and decency of Americans. We’ve gotta stop the trash talking, Twitter trolling, tearing folks down. This is a time for all of us to think about our role in putting indivisible in this one nation under God.”