Sanders campaign co-chair says Biden 'regretted' Obama assassination comment

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Rep. Ro Khanna: It's a three-way race

California Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna says the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination has come down to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden.

The co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ election campaign dodged a question on Sunday about former Vice President Joe Biden’s recent gaffes while on the stump by praising him for his long career as an elected official -- but saying that voters deciding among the 2020 Democrats don’t want the “status quo” anymore.

“The vice president has had a distinguished career in public service,” Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat and Sanders’ national campaign co-chair, said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “But, I think at the end of the day, the Democratic Party is going to vote for change.”

Khanna added: “They're going to say we don't want to go back to the status quo, we want to elect someone who understands that a lot of people have been left behind and has a new vision for how we're going to address that.”

RECALLING MLK AND RFK DEATHS, BIDEN ASKS CAMPAIGN CROWD, WHAT IF OBAMA 'HAD BEEN ASSASSINATED' IN 2008?

Khanna also said he believed Biden “regretted” making a comment over the weekend about what would have happened had former President Barack Obama been assassinated while on the campaign trail in 2008.

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“My two political heroes were Martin Luther King [Jr.] and Bobby Kennedy. My senior semester, they were both shot and killed,” Biden said while stumping in New Hampshire. “Imagine what would have happened if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated after becoming the de facto nominee. What would have happened in America?”

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The comment stirred up controversy, but a Biden aide said the candidate has used the analogy before when speaking to younger generations who were not alive during the turbulent 1960s. Biden asserted the assassinations of King and Kennedy raised his political awareness and propelled him to run for office.

He first ran – and won – a Senate seat in 1972 at the age of 29.

Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo contributed to this report.