Bloomberg plans to deflect attacks on him over to Sanders, focusing on what many party leaders fear — that he would lose to President Donald Trump and hurt other Democrats on the ballot because he “appeals to a small base.”

“At the debate tomorrow night, and I think the campaign in general for folks in this race, needs to be about one candidate, and that’s Bernie Sanders,” Bloomberg states director Dan Kanninen told reporters on Monday…

The focus on Bloomberg allowed Sanders to emerge largely unscathed from last week’s debate.

But since then, Democrats have been openly skeptical that the self-described democratic socialist could beat Trump, especially after he praised Fidel Castro’s literacy programs in Cuba during a “60 Minutes” interview and said he didn’t specify how he would pay for his trillions in proposed cradle-to-grave government programs.