Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump's campaign held a background call with reporters Sunday evening where officials laid out their view of the Democratic race and argued that former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are interchangeable.
As the Democratic race has become a two-man contest between Biden and Sanders, multiple sources say. Trump has been frustrated by the former vice president's comeback. That was evident in the call the campaign held Sunday night — something they now say they will do so periodically until November — as officials contended that electing Biden is the same as electing Sanders.
While the Trump campaign insisted it doesn't matter which candidate they face, the campaign's communications director attacked Biden's views on health care, immigration, the Green New Deal and gun control.
"They are two sides of the same coin," Tim Murtaugh said. "There's no thought about it."
Democrats would argue otherwise.
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While Sanders has energized the progressive wing, Biden has focused on rallying centrists around him, and both have argued they are better suited to defeat Trump.
While the Trump campaign compared them , Sanders has repeatedly drawn distinctions between himself and Biden on a range of issues from foreign policy, health care, bank regulation and trade.
A primary concern for the Trump campaign if Biden is the nominee will be how he performs in states that are critical to the President's re-election like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. But publicly, the campaign insisted Biden wouldn't be competitive with Trump in those states and discounted his blue-collar appeal during the call, arguing his past positions on trade have damaged him.
"The myth of Joe Biden's blue collar appeal will be exposed if he is the Democratic nominee," Murtaugh said.
The Biden campaign responded by contrasting Biden's and Trump's record on health care and suggested Trump is scared to run against Biden.
"He's proven that he's terrified of looking Joe Biden in the eye, even going as far as to get himself impeached when he was caught trying to coerce a foreign country into lying about the Vice President," Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said. "But all Donald Trump accomplished with that failed effort was to prove that Joe Biden is the only candidate who can overcome and defeat the president's smear machine. They're right to be panicked."
Sanders has also attacked Biden on trade — a line of criticism he has ramped up in ads in Michigan lately. The Vermont senator has repeatedly highlighted how Biden supported the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s, saying, "NAFTA was not a success. Voting for it was a big, big mistake."
Sanders' campaign downplayed the Trump campaign's call. "Donald Trump and his team lie all the time, so it's really hard to take anything they say seriously," said Mike Casca, communications director for the Sanders campaign.
In the end, the Trump campaign argued it doesn't matter which candidate Trump faces off with come November because "they agree on almost all of the important issues that they have been talking about since the beginning of this race."
CNN's Annie Grayer and Sarah Mucha contributed to this story.
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