Bernie Sanders (D-VT) endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president on Tuesday. Audience members rose to their feet as Sanders said their “job now” is to implement the hard-won platform by a electing a Democratic-controlled House and Senate and a “Hillary Clinton presidency”.
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But it was a long road to that moment.
The pieces Sanders didn’t get – like opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership and support for single-payer healthcare – was not based on ideology, but political concerns. Yahoo News host Katie Couric asked Sanders in a June 1, 2015, interview. The FBI concluded after an investigation that it would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton, though its director, James Comey, said the probe had shown Clinton and others had been “careless”. “And I intend to be in every corner of this country to make certain that happens”. I hope it’s mutual. “And on our worst days, I think it is fair to say we are 100 times better than any Republican candidate”, he said during a Democratic debate February 4, 2016.
“Hillary Clinton will make an outstanding president and I am proud to stand with her here today”, the Vermont senator said, vowing to “do everything I can” to help her win. “I am prepared to answer, to release all of the transcripts of the speeches to Wall Street that I gave”.
Andy Mager, one of the Syracuse for Sanders organizers, said he also liked what he heard from Clinton on Tuesday. “Oh my goodness. They must have been really crushed by this”. They will be dependent upon superdelegates.
It’s a clear indication of how far the party has moved to the left since Clinton’s husband ran for president in 1992 that she’s now feting Sanders, who spent most of his life as a political gadfly on the ideological fringes. Nonetheless, Mr. Sanders declared, “I’m going to do everything I can to defeat Donald Trump”.
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“I don’t believe that someone who five days ago was being hounded by the FBI is someone I would trust with my future”, he said, a reference to the investigation into Clinton’s use of a personal email server during her tenure at the State Department. “That’s why we will fight to secure universal health care, raise the minimum wage, and protect Americans’ fundamental right to vote – not corporations’ right to buy elections”, Mrs. Clinton said. “It’s no secret we disagree on a number of issues”, Sanders told the crowd, but called a Democratic platform meeting on Sunday in Orlando a “significant coming together” that produced the most “progressive platform in the history of the democratic party”.
