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.
Advertisement
“I would like the chairman of the party and the campaigns to agree that we can debate in New Hampshire next week”.
Sanders did not answer questions about the issue after a meeting Wednesday with President Barack Obama at the White House.
The meeting between the sitting president and his sometime critic is a moment for the president to show his public neutrality in a heated and unexpectedly tight race to replace him – refuting suggestions that he’s in the can for Sanders’ rival, Hillary Clinton. Chants of “Feel the Bern” filled the spirited hall from a crowd roughly equivalent to a quarter of the town’s population.
The White House visitor logs show Sanders making only one previous solo visit with Obama in the Oval Office, on December 15, 2014.
“A prolonged primary against Sanders will only pull Clinton even further to the left and prevent her from laying the groundwork for the general election”, Sean Spicer, the chief strategist and spokesman for the RNC, wrote in a memo that was widely distributed on Wednesday.
“We are grateful that the Union Leader and NBC have heard the voices of New Hampshire voters who have advocated loud and clear for a final debate since the summer”, the group New Hampshire Debates wrote in a letter to candidates. Clinton, meanwhile, registered support for her ability to handle individual issues and was considered to be more electable by a 39-point margin.
When Obama said earlier this month he would withhold his support for any political candidate that didn’t support “common sense” gun control laws, it was widely regarded as a rebuke of Sanders, who has voted for provisions that would protect firearm manufacturers from liability after shooting deaths.
Sanders said Wednesday he didn’t see the interview as a dig.
-Sanders said he didn’t ask for Obama’s endorsement; he did ask for an update on the fight against Islamic extremism and the effort to warm relations with Iran.
That’s a sharp contrast to Obama’s relationship with Clinton – which has been both deep and complicated.
The printed signs read “A Future to Believe In”.
“It seems like power is always trumping principle”, Obama said as he campaigned for Sanders in 2006.
Hayley Bruce, a University of Iowa spokeswoman, says 28-year-old Andrew Joseph Alemao was charged Tuesday with disorderly conduct after officers say they saw him throwing two tomatoes toward Trump during a speech. But Sanders is rapidly closing the gap between himself and Clinton. She’s held more than 100 Iowa events since announcing her campaign in April. He also opposes the president in advocating transforming Obama’s health care law into what he describes as a universal “Medicare for all” system.
Advertisement
Sanders described the meeting as “productive and constructive”, and said the two had discussed domestic and foreign policy and “a little bit of politics”.
