"I didn't dream all my life to be president, I wanted to play center field for the Cleveland Indians," said Sen. Sherrod Brown. | John Minchillo, File/AP Photo 2020 Election Sherrod Brown: 'I don’t know' if I’m best person to run vs. Trump

Sen. Sherrod Brown said Sunday he doesn't know whether he is the best choice to run against President Donald Trump in 2020, but he addressed specific issues related to rural voters in the United States.

The Ohio Democrat is seriously considering a run for president, but when asked by CNN host Jake Tapper whether he thinks he is the best person to take on Trump, Brown said, "I don't know."


"I've said before ... I didn't dream all my life to be president; I wanted to play center field for the Cleveland Indians," Brown said on CNN's "State of the Union." "That door has apparently closed."

Brown won reelection last month in a state Trump won in the 2016 presidential election, while taking a hard line on trade, tax policy, health care and other issues he said impacted rural and blue-collar workers.

"I've heard from a lot of people about taking that on. And it's not just a message that works in the industrial Midwest and in states that we need to beat President Trump. It's also a message for the X-ray technician in Oakland, and the construction worker in Augusta, Maine," Brown said.

"It's the respect and dignity of work matters for this country and ... neither party has paid enough attention to that," he added.

Brown said Sunday he doesn't think Democrats in 2018 spoke "to workers enough about the dignity of work and about the respect we should have for workers."

"You start with that — you have better health care policy, you have better retirement," he said. "I mean, if you work hard in this country, you ought to be able to get ahead, and so many Americans, so many Ohioans, are seeing that's not the case."