“One of the reasons I feel so strongly about Bernie’s ability to beat Trump is because we know that the Democratic nominee will have to credibly explain that Trump betrayed the working class with false promises and that he does not put forward real solutions to help struggling people,” said Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ 2020 campaign manager. “Bernie can and will do that successfully. We’ll have a national debate about policies that help the one percent versus policies that lift the 99. I get the sense Trump knows the reckoning is coming and is worried about being exposed as a fraud. No Sharpie edits will save him.”

For Sanders to get to the point of having a national debate with Trump over the merits of socialism, he must first survive the Democratic primary. But even if he doesn’t make it through that gauntlet, the Senator will have managed to move the contours of the debate. Four years ago, Sanders and his team were warning liberals that they shouldn’t underestimate Trump’s appeal, precisely because it spoke to the desire for voters to have government side with them over the elites.

Now, it appears, socialism is roughly as popular as Trump. And the president himself recognizes that Sanders, the only self-described, avowed socialist running, may be more formidable than he previously thought. As The Daily Beast reported in April, Trump will—at times totally unprompted—bring up Sanders’ working-class support and concede that there is, in fact, potential for the democratic socialist to win over some Trump voters with his populism, including on trade, sources who’ve discussed this with the president said.