Los Angeles Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti believes he can easily make the case as to why he would make the best potential president of the United States.

But perhaps more importantly, the Democrat has already thought through how he would confront President Trump face-to-face when the time comes. 

Speaking with reporters Thursday in Washington at a breakfast hosted by Bloomberg News, Garcetti said his party made a key strategic error in the 2016 campaign by focusing on what they saw as Trump’s most glaring weaknesses rather than trying to undercut what voters perceived as his strength – his strength itself.

“He has practiced actually seeming strong. Strength is his strength,” Garcetti said, before launching into a mock debate against the Republican.

“Ignoring doesn't work, yelling back doesn't work, but you have to be able to kind of point out that, you know, Donald Trump is saying a lot of stuff, that he's a great deflector,” he said.

“You have to, I think, take him on at a level where you're calm, where you say something like, ‘You know what, Donald? You're the American dream. I mean, you're a hustler. You've been married to three amazing women,’ … and kind of pivot off of that moment, you know, back to ‘I know you've bankrupted a company or two; now the country's about to be bankrupt. Our debt is about equal to our GDP…That’s not fair to my kids."

Garcetti said the fact that both Republicans and Democrats struggling to settle on a strategy for countering Trump is understandable, “because he’s a bully.” At one point he acknowledged how Trump might approach him in a debate, as “Sanctuary Eric” because of his city’s immigration policies.

“Too many people tense up around him, they don't know how to deal with it,” he said. “But we have to bring it back to the people. The thing that Democrats cannot do is make this about a shouting match, because the American tune out and say, ‘Neither of these people speak to me.’”

During the hour-long conversation Garcetti said he has not made a final decision about running for president in 2020, but expects to in the coming months after some final conversations with his family and key advisers.

If he runs, Garcetti made clear he will focus on his experience leading one of the nation’s largest cities, and present a clear vision for the future of the country as well as what he described his view of the national identity – something he also faulted Democrats for failing to do.

“I don't think you can lead a nation if you don't have a definition of the nation. We have to define, as Democrats, what a nation is and embrace the entire nation,” he said.

The campaign, he predicted, will come down to three things: national unity, “winning the future,” and “getting sh** done.” The latter he thinks he can speak to uniquely as a mayor.

“You can't B.S. a pothole. You either pave it or not,” he said. “There’s those of us that are doing that, [solving] real problems that we're facing, and then there's the kind of the magicians here who invent problems, and then don't solve them.”