Bernie Sanders talks "political revolution of 2016"
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders did not concede the Democratic race to Hillary Clinton in a live-streamed speech Thursday night, but he made it clear that she is no longer the candidate he's targeting.
"This campaign is also about defeating Donald Trump, the presumed Republican nominee. After centuries of racism, sexism and discrimination of all forms in our country we do not need a major party candidate who makes bigotry the cornerstone of his campaign," Sanders said. "We cannot have a president who insults Mexicans and Latinos, Muslims, women and African-Americans. We cannot have a president who, in the midst of so much income and wealth inequality, wants to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the very, very rich. We cannot have a president who, despite all of the scientific evidence, believes that climate change is a hoax."
Though Sanders said that defeating Trump "cannot be our only goal," he said, "The major political task that we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly," adding, "And I personally intend to begin my role in that process in a very short period of time."
In a departure from his usual speechifying, Sanders read his speech from a teleprompter. And unlike his packed rallies across the country, filled with boisterous young voters, the Vermont studio setting was comparably bland, a flat baby blue backdrop swimming with small "Bernie" logos.
Sanders otherwise talked to his supporters about the need for to "continue our grassroots efforts to create the America that we know we can become."
"My hope is that when future historians look back and describe how our country moved forward into reversing the drift toward oligarchy, and created a government which represents all the people and not just the few, they will note that, to a significant degree, that effort began with the political revolution of 2016," Sanders said.
Still, the Vermont senator signaled that he is moving toward unifying with Clinton for the general election in an effort to defeat Trump.
"It is no secret that Secretary Clinton and I have strong disagreements on some very important issues. It is also true that our views are quite close on others," he said. "I look forward, in the coming weeks, to continued discussions between the two campaigns to make certain that your voices are heard and that the Democratic Party passes the most progressive platform in its history and that Democrats actually fight for that agenda."
Sanders and Clinton met Tuesday night in D.C., just as polls were closing in D.C., the final primary on the calendar this year. The pair announced afterward in similar very statements that they'd had a "positive discussion" and were both committed to defeating Trump in November.
For Sanders, the winding down of his campaign began last week when Clinton won big in California and mathematically clinched the nomination. After that, even Democratic leaders who'd been previously reluctant to endorse started lining up to support her.
That Thursday, just two days later, President Obama put out a video in which he proclaimed his support: "I'm with her, I am fired up, and I cannot wait to get out there to campaign for Hillary," he said. The pair were scheduled to appear at their first joint campaign event this week in Wisconsin, but the event was postponed in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando.
Later that night, both Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren--one of the only Democratic senators not to endorse during the primary--also both publicly announced they're for Clinton.
Over 200,000 people tuned into Thursday's 23-minute livestream at one point or another, the Sanders campaign said. Originally, the campaign had urged supporters to host house parties to watch the address, but in the end, that effort wasn't sustained. When Sanders left the studio, a few locals did greet him holding signs that read "thank you Bernie!" and "we stand with Bernie."