Former Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) told the Associated Press in Iowa on Wednesday that fellow Democratic presidential candidates were guilty of “cheering on a recession because they want to stick it to Trump.”

Rep. John Delaney spoke with reporters in Altoona, IA, where he told @ajjaffe, “it feels like some Democrats are cheering on a recession because they want to stick it to Trump.” When I pressed him if he thought some Democrats were hoping for a recession, said, “I didn’t say that” pic.twitter.com/wrmTlsfOHE — DJ Judd (@DJJudd) August 21, 2019

Delaney, one of the more moderate candidates, has warned fellow candidates that policies such as “Medicare for All” and decriminalized illegal border crossings are bad for the country and sure to fail in a general election.

In the first Democratic presidential primary debate in Miami, Florida, in June, Delaney said: “All of the big transformative things we have ever done in this country’s history have happened when huge majorities of the American people get behind them, which is why we need real solutions not impossible promises.”

On Wednesday, he said: “I don’t want a recession because I don’t want these workers in here to face a recession.” He said he worried that President Donald Trump’s economic policies were, however, making recession more likely.

A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. There has not yet been one single quarter of negative growth under Trump.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.