Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders praised President Barack Obama for being “evenhanded” in the Democratic primary race after meeting with him at the White House on Wednesday.
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On Wednesday night, an emotional actress Susan Sarandon took the stage at Music Man Square in Mason City to introduce friend and current Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Even after Hillary Clinton left her position as secretary of state following Obama’s reelection in 2012, the president still regularly meets informally at the White House with Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner.
On Tuesday morning, the Iowa caucuses will officially be over and Iowa residents may have to wait awhile to see the candidates back in the state.
Asked if establishment Democrats would become unnerved if he defeated Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders said “the good news is we still live in a democracy and people have a say in this”.
“DNC has said this would be an unsanctioned debate so we would not want to jeopardize our ability to participate in future debates”, said Jeff Weaver, a Sanders spokesman.
Sanders’ campaign responded that it would be willing to participate in a February 4 New Hampshire forum if she was willing to agree to three more debates – one each in March, April and May.
“We have no plans to sanction any further debates before the upcoming first-in-the-nation caucuses and primary, but will reconvene with our campaigns after those two contests to review our schedule”, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in response to the proposed debate.
It’s unclear what the meeting signals, but ABC News notes that it comes after the president recently rejected any comparison between his campaign in 2008 and Sanders’ campaign in 2016. “It’s just that when women talk, some people think we’re shouting”.
Clinton and Sanders’s tight race in Iowa could give the victor a decisive early advantage in the Democratic race.
The White House said the meeting with Sanders had been in the works since Sanders asked Obama for some face time when he saw him a month ago at a holiday party for lawmakers.
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But Sanders said: “There was some discussion the other day about a Politico interview where he was tipping the scales towards Secretary Clinton”. Mr. Sanders who had policy disagreements with the President on several occasions, said after both met on Wednesday: “There’s no secret that we have, as is the case in a democratic society, we have differences of opinion… So, I’m in. If the other candidates are in, you count me in”.
